9/11 at Red Rocks

My cousins Dennis and Rita visited from Texas in September of this year. Our time for sightseeing was limited to excursions my 90-year-old father could make with us. We ate at my favorite restaurants -- Lucille's Creole Cafe and Tequila's.

And things we could do while Daddy's care-giver was working -- We walked at Kendrick Lake and Stone House Park where Dennis spotted trout in Bear Creek. Leave it to a fisherman. To be honest, I'd never noticed the trout.

And of course I wanted them to see Red Rocks. We were lucky that they were here September 11 and we all got to witness the Annual 9/11 Stair Climb.

On September 11, 2005, five Denver firefighters climbed the equivalent of 110 flights of stairs at the 1999 Broadway building in downtown Denver to commemorate the 343 New York City firefighters killed in the line of duty at the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001.

The memorial stair climb moved to the Qwest Building and by 2008 it had grown to 343 the maximum that facility could accommodate. A fitting number, but there were hundreds from throughout Colorado on the wait list who could not participate.

By 2009 a second and simultaneous memorial stair climb was taking place at Red Rocks Amphitheater. The stair climb is open to all. They make nine counter clockwise laps in the amphitheater.

This year more than 1,000 peopled did the Red Rocks stair climb. From arm-babies to grandparents.

They walked down the steps on the south side

across in front of the stage

and back up the north side to the top.

Red Rocks Amphitheater is an open-air concert venue. Performers first started coming there in 1906. The City of Denver purchased it in 1927, and in 1936 the city enlisted the aid of the Civilian Conservation Corp and the Works Progress Administration, two of President Franklin Roosevelt's programs to help pull the United States out of the Great Depression, to build the amphitheater as it is now. 

The amphitheater seats 9,450 people and has presented a Who's Who among musicians from opera singer Mary Garden in 1911 to Rock and Roll greats like the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix in the 60's. 

An incident occurred during a Jethro Tull performance in 1972 dubbed "Riot at Red Rocks." Gate-crashers and police and tear gas -- oh my. Hard rock was banned for the next five years. 

Pop took over -- like The Carpenters, Carol King, and John Denver (of course.)

A law suit and court order restored Rock and Roll to Red Rocks. This summer's concert series included Joe Bonnamassa and Death Cab for Cuties as well as Country and Western stars like Tim McGraw.

But on September 11 every year, in the midst of the summer concert season, Colorado's people remember those New York City Firefighters who lost their lives in 2001. And all our nation's fallen firefighters.