Best Place to Smell the Roses 2003 | Sensory GardenDenver Botanic Gardens | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Place to Smell the Roses

Sensory Garden
Denver Botanic Gardens

There are several reasons that Denver's fine botanic paradise in the city was just named one of the top ten such public gardens in the nation by Country Living Gardener magazine, but here's one of the most touching: This garden takes advantage of all the senses, providing touchable, smellable, tasty, colorful and aural outdoor experiences all rolled into one. The therapeutic garden also serves as a landscape-design model for the facilities that cater to patrons with disabilities or special needs, featuring wheelchair-accessible paths, raised beds, container plantings and other amenities.

Best Garden Tour

American Society of Landscape Architects Tour

For the past ten years, the Colorado Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects has hosted an annual tour showcasing some of Denver's finest private residential gardens. This year's tour, scheduled for Sunday, June 22, will focus on water-wise gardens and minimal sod use. The tour is self-guided, but volunteers are available at each site to answer questions. Proceeds from the tours benefit the Jane Silverstein Ries Foundation, which awards scholarships and grants to those who demonstrate "stewardship of the land."

Best Garden Tour

American Society of Landscape Architects Tour

For the past ten years, the Colorado Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects has hosted an annual tour showcasing some of Denver's finest private residential gardens. This year's tour, scheduled for Sunday, June 22, will focus on water-wise gardens and minimal sod use. The tour is self-guided, but volunteers are available at each site to answer questions. Proceeds from the tours benefit the Jane Silverstein Ries Foundation, which awards scholarships and grants to those who demonstrate "stewardship of the land."

Best Way to Learn About the State You Just Moved To

Tesoro Foundation
Historic Lecture Series

Sam Arnold, owner of the Fort restaurant, is a controversial character in some quarters, but the dinner/lecture series started last year by the Tesoro Foundation, which he chairs, is more likely to inform than enrage. Upcoming lecturers include Dr. Patricia Limerick, who compares the nineteenth-century West to its modern equivalent during a talk on April 13, and Dr. Robert Shikes, who will speak on April 27 about health and disease in the context of Colorado's early fur trappers.

Best Way to Learn About the State You Just Moved To

Tesoro Foundation
Historic Lecture Series

Sam Arnold, owner of the Fort restaurant, is a controversial character in some quarters, but the dinner/lecture series started last year by the Tesoro Foundation, which he chairs, is more likely to inform than enrage. Upcoming lecturers include Dr. Patricia Limerick, who compares the nineteenth-century West to its modern equivalent during a talk on April 13, and Dr. Robert Shikes, who will speak on April 27 about health and disease in the context of Colorado's early fur trappers.

Best Place to Not Get Lost

U.S. Geological Survey Map Store
Denver Federal Center

Maps, maps, and more maps. Wall maps, topo maps, maps of the solar system, art posters of the planet, and plenty of books and CDs and software, too, about lots of natural-resources topics, all with great-looking maps, natch. And here's a bonus: free gift wrap -- if you don't mind covering gifts in huge, outdated maps.

Best Place to Not Get Lost

U.S. Geological Survey Map Store
Denver Federal Center

Maps, maps, and more maps. Wall maps, topo maps, maps of the solar system, art posters of the planet, and plenty of books and CDs and software, too, about lots of natural-resources topics, all with great-looking maps, natch. And here's a bonus: free gift wrap -- if you don't mind covering gifts in huge, outdated maps.

Best Wilderness Survival Courses

Boulder Outdoor Survival School

Say you lack fancy gear but have an urgent need to test your survival skills in an inhospitable landscape. Before embarking on any life-threatening adventures, check out the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. Established in the late 1960s, BOSS offers different levels of training designed to make your wilderness experience safe and enjoyable. Field courses take place in Colorado and Utah, using low-tech camping and hiking to teach the ways of the Anasazi, Paiute and Fremont Indians. This is one time you won't mind being BOSSed around.

Best Wilderness Survival Courses

Boulder Outdoor Survival School

Say you lack fancy gear but have an urgent need to test your survival skills in an inhospitable landscape. Before embarking on any life-threatening adventures, check out the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. Established in the late 1960s, BOSS offers different levels of training designed to make your wilderness experience safe and enjoyable. Field courses take place in Colorado and Utah, using low-tech camping and hiking to teach the ways of the Anasazi, Paiute and Fremont Indians. This is one time you won't mind being BOSSed around.

Best 4x4 Trail Closest to Denver

Red Cone Trail

For a truly white-knuckle ride, off-roaders should take U.S. Highway 285 south and west of Denver, then leave the asphalt behind two miles outside of Grant. Make your way to the Hardcart Gulch Campground; go about 100 yards west and bear right at the fork. From there, Red Cone climbs up over the Continental Divide and ends up just outside of Keystone. Built by the United States Forest Service with the input of local four-wheeler clubs, Red Cone is the perfect mixture of beauty and peril. One particular quarter-mile section toward the top of the 12,800-foot high point is a fifteen-foot-wide knife-edged road. Lean too far on one side and you'll tumble nearly 1,000 feet down. Overcorrect on the other, and it's a hundred feet over the edge. The way down the other side doesn't get much better, with softball-sized rocks that litter the trail, poised to roll your rig onto its roof if you don't stay on top of the wheel. We tell you this because some people consider this sort of thing fun.

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