Aerial.America.S03E05.Colorado
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00It's where the Rockies soar over the Great Plains, a land with more high peaks than any
00:08other state, but also towering mountains of sand and a river of red rocks that lures music
00:19lovers with its perfect sound.
00:23In Colorado, athletes push their bodies to the limits in their quest for gold, and others
00:30climb to honor heroes who died.
00:36Here, engineers span some of America's deepest canyons, and wild herds thrive.
00:44From its alpine valleys to the tops of its deadly bells, it was here where a young poet
00:51was inspired to write one of America's most patriotic songs.
00:56Aerial Colorado tells the story of how a tiny mining town became one of the greatest cities
01:02in the West, with a mile-high team that's made the Rocky Mountain State proud.
01:10From its ski slopes to its skies, this is where America comes together along the continental
01:18divide.
01:21This is Colorado.
01:48In 1858, a miner in Georgia named William Green Russell heard an intriguing rumor through
02:11his Cherokee wife.
02:14Members of her tribe had found gold in a remote creek in Colorado.
02:20Russell and eight companions decided to set out and see if it was true.
02:25Although many joined their party along the way, most gave up and returned home.
02:32But Russell stuck it out, and in July 1858, he too struck gold.
02:41Word of Russell's find spread across the country, and soon thousands of hopeful prospectors
02:46flooded into Colorado.
02:51Most of them were headed to an area that geologists now call the Colorado Mineral Belt.
03:01Deep below the peaks of the Rocky Mountains lies a rich belt of ore-bearing rock, full
03:06of gold and silver.
03:11Formed by fiery volcanic forces, the belt stretches across central Colorado from the
03:16northeast down to the southwest.
03:24In those early days, getting the ore out meant digging it out, by hand, and living in crowded
03:31mining camps with hundreds of other rowdy prospectors.
03:36That's what life was once like here in the former mining town of Telluride, which was
03:41founded in 1878 at the base of this narrow box canyon.
03:50These days, Telluride is better known for the homes of celebrities like Tom Cruise and
03:55Ralph Lauren, but once this tiny town bustled with eager miners, entrepreneurs, and Colorado's
04:03most wanted.
04:08In 1889, Butch Cassidy rode into town, walked into the local San Miguel Valley bank, and
04:15pulled off his first bank robbery, walking out with $24,580 in cash, which would be worth
04:23more than a half a million dollars today.
04:28When it came time to make the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, director George
04:33Roy Hill chose a location nearby to shoot one of the film's most memorable scenes.
04:40Locomotives have been pulling cars through this canyon south of Telluride since 1882.
04:45Today, the Durango and Silverton Railway carries history buffs and tourists.
04:53But in Butch Cassidy's time, it hauled gold and silver ore out of Colorado's mineral belt.
05:00In the 1969 film, Paul Newman and Robert Redford stop the train and try to blow up its safe,
05:08but blow up the entire mail car by mistake.
05:13The money they were after rained down on the tracks, just as it did for many of Colorado's
05:18small mining towns as they rode to prosperity on the rails.
05:26Trains finally arrived in Telluride in 1890, and as ore from the town rolled out, wealth
05:36rolled in.
05:39A building boom gave the town a distinctive 19th century main street that's now the venue
05:45for its famous annual film festival.
05:52These days, there's no train to Telluride, just one road and this single high-altitude
05:58airstrip.
06:12The heyday of Colorado's gold rush is long gone. Many of its old mining towns were abandoned
06:19when the ore ran out.
06:23But one has been reborn as America's ski capital, Aspen.
06:32It was named for the native trees that blanket the surrounding mountains.
06:37In the late 19th century, Aspen had the most productive silver mines in America.
06:43At the time, the U.S. government was scooping up all the silver it could get its hands on
06:48for its national reserves.
06:50When that buying spree ended, Aspen's mines closed, almost overnight.
06:57But then an entrepreneur turned the town's fortunes around and transformed this little
07:04mining town into a ski resort.
07:10Aspen is one of many ski resorts scattered across the Rockies, including Telluride, Breckenridge,
07:17O'Neill, Copper Mountain, Arapaho Basin, and Steamboat Springs.
07:23But Aspen was the first to make Colorado America's ski capital.
07:33Four major ski slopes blanket the peaks around Aspen.
07:41Even in the off-season, paragliders use these slopes to launch themselves into the skies
07:47and soar over the Colorado Rockies and some of the most expensive homes in the world.
07:58Aspen's silver boom has been replaced by one in real estate, driven in part by the town's
08:04popularity with celebrities.
08:07Just outside of town, at the bottom of this narrow valley, is the 160-acre estate of actor
08:13Kevin Costner. He's one of dozens of celebrities who have called Aspen home over the years.
08:20Others include Hunter S. Thompson, Goldie Hawn, and Jack Nicholson.
08:27But many who pass through Aspen aren't here to rub shoulders with Hollywood stars or hit
08:32the slopes.
08:37They come to try to climb some of the most dangerous peaks in the United States.
08:44Tourists know these two distinctive bell-shaped peaks as the Maroon Bells, but climbers know
08:52they can also be deadly.
08:57They are some of the most photographed mountains in the world.
09:03There are hundreds of high peaks in the Rockies, but most who set eyes on the Bells never forget
09:08them.
09:10But the beauty of these peaks can mask their danger.
09:22Climbers have only to take one step on these steep slopes to discover why.
09:29The hills can give way suddenly and send a climber tumbling down the mountain's jagged
09:33flanks.
09:37On the way up, a sign posted by the U.S. Forest Service warns of the mountain's danger.
09:43The beautiful Maroon Bells are unbelievably deceptive, it says. The rock is loose and
09:48unstable. It kills without warning. The snowfields are treacherous. The gullies, death traps.
09:56Only rarely have these mountains given a second chance.
10:03In 1965, eight people died on the Maroon Bells in five separate climbing accidents, tragedies
10:11that gave the mountains their nickname, the Deadly Bells.
10:19But this part of Colorado hasn't just claimed the lives of climbers. It's also been holding
10:27on to fascinating evidence of the Ice Age creatures that once prowled the Colorado Rockies.
10:35On October 14, 2010, just outside of Aspen, in the village of Snowmass, a bulldozer operator
10:49building the new Ziegler Reservoir made a remarkable discovery. The fossilized bones
10:56of a mastodon. Scientists rushed in to see what other prehistoric treasures might be
11:02buried here. Over 70 days, they sifted through 7,000 tons of dirt and unearthed 4,500 fossils
11:12from more than 40 different species. A Colombian mammoth, muskrats, sloths, horses, camels,
11:21and birds, making it one of the greatest scientific discoveries in Colorado history.
11:32Tens of thousands of years ago, this future reservoir was the site of a prehistoric lake.
11:40The animals would have come here to drink, but why these creatures all died together
11:45remains a mystery. One theory is that an earthquake suddenly turned the lake bed to quicksand,
11:53which swallowed the beasts whole, though no one knows for sure. Today, these motor scrapers
12:02are the only giant creatures on this ancient lake, and the bones from Ziegler Reservoir
12:09are being studied by scientists at Denver's Natural History Museum to better understand
12:14the Ice Age history of the Rocky Mountains.
12:22With so many mountains in the Colorado Rockies, it's not surprising to find evidence of unique
12:27discoveries behind many of them. What lies near the source of Colorado's tiny Crystal
12:34River is no exception. This is the site of one of the most unique finds in America, a
12:42vast buried fortune of some of the purest marble in the world.
12:49Mining engineer George Yule first came across this bed of stone in the 1870s. Later, the
12:56Rockefellers invested millions to get the marble out.
13:02What makes Yule marble so special is that it's completely white, without any of the
13:08streaks found in most marbles. That's why it was selected to build the Lincoln Memorial
13:14in Washington, D.C., and the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
13:21Unlike most marble quarries, this one lies entirely underground. Piled outside are blocks
13:29with flaws that will be sold as scrap.
13:34In 2004, Yule marble became Colorado's official state stone. These days, most of it ends up
13:42overseas in Italy and China. But the first major project to be built with this marble
13:48was much closer to home, the interior of the Colorado Statehouse.
14:00When Colorado became a state in 1876, Denver was chosen as the capital, securing its place
14:07as the Rocky Mountain State's premier city. But disputes over the design of its new statehouse
14:13delayed construction for decades. It wasn't until 1908, more than 30 years later, that
14:20the capital's giant dome was finished with a coat of gold leaf, a monument to Colorado's
14:28early miners and those who first settled this city.
14:36Soon after gold was discovered at the base of the Rockies, entrepreneurs opened a saloon
14:46nearby. That tavern was the first permanent building in a little mining town called Denver.
14:56Over the next 30 years, Denver mushroomed as it catered to prospectors on their way
15:00to and from the mines. By 1890, Denver had a population of 107,000 and was the second
15:09largest city in the West after San Francisco. Its first bank, post office, and bookstore
15:16were located here in Larimer Square that's now an upscale shopping area.
15:23High above, Denver bristles with skyscrapers and a daring new building that was designed
15:30to launch the city into the future. The Denver Art Museum was founded in the 1890s, but its
15:38older building wasn't quite in keeping with its growing modern art collection. So in 2000,
15:44it commissioned internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind to design new galleries that
15:50would secure the museum's relevance far into the future. Libeskind based his design on
15:56the thrusting extreme angles of the Rockies and clad the new museum in 9,000 titanium
16:03panels. Outside stands the Big Sweep, a 35-foot high sculpture of a broom and dustpan by artists
16:11Kloss Oldenburg and Kosche van Bruggen. The influence of the Rockies on Denver's modern
16:18architecture isn't limited to this museum. Outside of town, a series of peaks appears
16:26on the horizon. Architect Curtis W. Fentress came up with this mountain-inspired design
16:34for the new Jefferson Terminal at Denver International Airport. Teflon-coated fiberglass, no thicker
16:42than a credit card, covers this now iconic 1.5 million square foot terminal. Inside,
16:52its walls are lined with the state's own Yule marble. Colorado's modernist architecture
17:00caught the eye of filmmaker Woody Allen in 1973, when he was looking for a futuristic
17:07backdrop for his new science fiction parody, Sleeper. He found it here, on Genesee Mountain,
17:15just outside of Denver. Pritched in the trees, this futuristic-looking house was designed
17:23by architect Charles Deaton in the 60s. People aren't angular, Deaton explained, so why should
17:32they live in rectangles? It was in this house that Woody Allen's character Miles Monroe
17:38wakes up, after being cryogenically frozen for 200 years, and finds himself worlds away
17:45from his former life in 20th century Manhattan. Sleeper was an instant hit, and has made this
17:55Colorado house famous. But it's not architecture, or the movies, that Denver is ultimately most
18:07famous for. That honor goes to its hometown team.
18:15Here, at Mile High. There's a good reason why Denver's Mile High Stadium has been sold
18:22out for almost every football game since the 1970s. Its home team, the Denver Broncos,
18:29is one of the most successful in the NFL. They've won six AFC championships, and two
18:37back-to-back Super Bowls. And they're known to play best on their home turf, which is
18:43one reason it takes such a beating. It's repainted before every game in Broncos blue,
18:52orange, and white. While Mile High is getting prepped, so too is the team. Just outside
19:01of Denver, in Englewood, is the Broncos' conditioning center. This is where the team trains between
19:08games. Legendary Broncos quarterback John Elway practiced here until 1999, when he brought
19:15his team to victory one last time at Super Bowl XXXIII. The team hasn't brought home
19:23a trophy since, but today, players work hard to continue Elway's winning legacy.
19:31In the 1990s, Denver and its suburbs, like Englewood, made up one of the fastest-growing
19:37metropolitan areas in America. Rising incomes, quality of life, and home ownership made Denver
19:44Metro the envy of the nation, which made what happened here on April 20, 1999, in the suburb
19:53of Columbine, that much more shocking. On that morning, two students here at Columbine
20:01High School unleashed a wave of terror. When their homemade bombs failed to detonate, the
20:09two heavily-armed 12th grade boys gunned down 13 people before taking their own lives.
20:17The events of that day led to a national search for answers that would explain the violence.
20:25But even after more than a decade, many still wonder how Columbine could have happened.
20:34On this fall Saturday, Columbine looks much like any other Colorado high school. Cheerleaders
20:40and the band prepare for an upcoming game. But the events of April 20, 1999, have not
20:47been forgotten. The original library, where most of the violence took place, has been
20:53demolished and replaced by the new Hope Columbine Memorial Library, built to honor those who
21:00died.
21:02Columbine High School lies in what's called the Front Range, where Colorado's rocky mountains
21:09meet the Great Plains. To the east, farmland stretches 150 miles to the state's borders
21:16with Nebraska and Kansas. This is Colorado's breadbasket.
21:32Many think of Colorado as the Rocky Mountain State, but nearly 50 percent of it is actually
21:38farmland. The state's 36,000 farms produce cash receipts in the billions, putting Colorado
21:48in the top ten in the nation for the production of alfalfa hay, potatoes, and wool.
21:56But what's interesting in Colorado is seeing what happens where the mountains and the plains
22:02meet, especially here in the San Luis Valley.
22:11This valley lies in the southern half of the state, bordered by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains
22:16to the east. With an average elevation of 7,500 feet, it's the highest alpine valley
22:23in North America.
22:26Over millennia, mountain streams have poured sediment into the San Luis Valley. Winds from
22:32the southwest push it towards the Sangre de Cristo Range. But when storm winds from the
22:38mountains push back, that sediment gets trapped in the middle and piles into these towering
22:44dunes that cover nearly 150,000 acres. 750 feet high in places, these are the tallest
22:53sand dunes in America. An early explorer described the appearance of these waves of sand as
23:00exactly that of the sea in a storm.
23:05Great Sand Dunes National Park is one of the many surprising sights that appear where Colorado's
23:11plains and mountains converge. But there are surprising sounds here, too.
23:20Like those that reverberate off the walls of Red Rocks Amphitheater in the foothills
23:25of the Rockies outside of Denver, drawing thousands to one of the most famous open-air
23:31arenas in the world, thanks in part to the band U2.
23:38Bono used the stunning setting of Red Rocks as a backdrop for U2's iconic video for the
23:43song Sunday Bloody Sunday.
23:50Tonight, fans are gathering to hear Snoop Dogg and Soundtribe's Sector 9.
23:57What makes Red Rocks a unique performance venue is its stunning natural acoustics.
24:03Concert halls can spend millions perfecting their sound, but the steep angle of the arena
24:09and the walls created by these rock formations provide their own perfect acoustics, naturally,
24:16thanks to a stroke of geologic luck that was set into motion nearly 300 million years ago.
24:24Red Rocks lies along a river of sandstone peaks that continues south down the Front Range.
24:33First thrust up by geologic forces, these rock formations were then softened by millions
24:39of years of erosion. They pass through subdivisions, golf courses, and a Garden of the Gods.
24:53When two surveyors mapped this collection of sandstone pinnacles back in 1859, one of
24:58them thought it would be the perfect spot for a beer garden. But the other considered
25:03it a place worthy of the divine, and so he named it the Garden of the Gods.
25:11And he wasn't the last one to find God on the Front Range.
25:17Over the last 20 years, nearby Colorado Springs has been transformed into a national hub of
25:23Christian fundamentalist worship. Here, megachurches, not mountains, rise from the plains.
25:31Over 100 religious organizations call the area home, leading some to brand Colorado Springs
25:38the Mecca of conservative Christianity.
25:44One of the city's megachurches was recently rocked by scandal. It was here at the New
25:50Life Church that Pastor Ted Haggard preached vehemently against homosexuality to his 14,000
25:56member congregation. But in 2006, Haggard admitted to having a relationship with a male
26:05escort, from whom he'd also bought the drug crystal meth. Father Ted resigned from New
26:11Life Church and ended up selling insurance.
26:21Rising above Colorado Springs, in the foothills of the Rockies, one spiritual center stands
26:26apart. The Cadet Chapel at the U.S. Air Force Academy. It's the most visited man-made site
26:35in Colorado. Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian services are held here, all under one extraordinary
26:44roof. The chapel is the centerpiece of a sleek, modernist campus designed at the height of
26:51the jet age by architect Walter Netsch. At any given time, up to 4,000 cadets train here
26:59to be the Air Force's next generation of leaders and find inspiration in the 17 soaring spires
27:06that invoke jets taking flight.
27:12Many of the Air Force Academy's graduates land here, at nearby Peterson Air Force Base.
27:24They might even get a chance to fly this V-22 Osprey, taking off from the base. This controversial
27:30new aircraft lifts off like a helicopter, but can fly like a plane.
27:37Peterson is home to the headquarters of the United States Air Force Space Command, which
27:42oversees satellite and cyber operations for the U.S. military. But once, many of the top-secret
27:49operations now underway at Peterson were buried deep inside a nearby mountain, built to withstand
27:55the impact of nuclear attack.
28:06A single railcar winds its way up Colorado's Pikes Peak, high above Colorado Springs.
28:14A regular train would slide right down these tracks, but this Swiss-made car uses a cogwheel
28:20to grab hold of teeth on the rails and ratchet itself up. By the time it reaches the top
28:28of the mountain, it's the highest railroad of its kind in the world.
28:37But it wasn't always so easy to get to the top of Pikes Peak.
28:43In 1893, a poet named Catherine Lee Bates reached the summit on a mule.
28:55We hired a prairie wagon, she recalled, but near the top, we had to leave the wagon and
29:00go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired, but when I saw the view, I felt great joy.
29:08All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.
29:16Inspired, Bates wrote a few verses, which later became the lyrics to America the Beautiful.
29:30Climb high in the Colorado Rockies, and it's not hard to see why Bates was so awestruck by the view.
29:41Down below, herds of wild elk cross the mountains in their search for food.
29:48There are more of these animals in Colorado than in any other state.
29:54Local hunters call the densely tree-covered valleys where they graze dark pine,
30:00a perfect description of this landscape when seen from the air.
30:08Nearby, a lone mountain goat searches for its flock.
30:15This species is only found in the western half of North America, and ranges all the way up to Alaska.
30:24But no matter how high you go in Colorado, there's one place you'll never be able to see from up here,
30:32a place that the U.S. government has worked hard to keep hidden for more than half a century.
30:42Just a few miles from Pikes Peak is what looks like a mine shaft, but actually,
30:48it's the entrance to one of America's most legendary military command centers.
30:54When the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, was first formed in 1958,
31:01it needed a safe home from which it could watch the skies for Soviet missiles,
31:06and take a direct hit in the event of nuclear war.
31:13So military engineers created a hidden fortress carved 2,000 feet into the granite core of Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain.
31:25Inside, 1,800 people once worked in a series of bunkers,
31:29each mounted on springs to absorb the shock of a potential nuclear blast.
31:35They monitored the skies around the globe for long-range missiles,
31:39and played elaborate computerized war games that prepared them for Armageddon.
31:45But a nuclear attack never came.
31:49And in 2006, almost 50 years after building it, the U.S. government pulled most of NORAD out of the mountain.
31:57The threats to U.S. national security have since evolved.
32:02A bunker deep inside the Rockies isn't necessarily the best defense against today's cyber attacks, terrorists, and dirty bombs.
32:14But there is one place in Colorado that's been designed to deal with exactly these kinds of threats.
32:21Or at least the people who perpetrate them.
32:27Just 30 miles south of Cheyenne Mountain lies ADX Florence, the federal government's Supermax prison.
32:37Opened in 1994, this is the most secure prison in the world.
32:43And the reason why is that it holds 500 of the world's most dangerous criminals.
32:51Supermax has been designed to make sure no prisoner will ever escape.
32:55And none have.
32:59At least not yet.
33:01Inmates here spend up to 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.
33:06Conditions one prisoner called a living tomb.
33:10And a former warden described as a clean version of hell.
33:16Inside this facility is Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, FBI turncoat Robert Hansen,
33:23and Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
33:29A shocking attack that killed six, injured a thousand more, and foreshadowed one of America's greatest tragedies.
33:38A tragedy that's being remembered today, nearby, high in the Colorado Rockies.
33:47An abandoned railroad line cuts a steep path up Colorado's Mount Manitou.
33:54A group of determined firefighters is finally reaching the top.
33:59Fully loaded with oxygen tanks, they've climbed more than 2,000 feet in the heat of the blazing Colorado sun.
34:08But they're not here to put out a fire or rescue an injured hiker.
34:13They've come to honor their colleagues who died climbing the stairs of the World Trade Center exactly ten years earlier on 9-11-2001.
34:25Since there are no skyscrapers in this part of Colorado, these firefighters have decided to honor this day by climbing the Manitou Incline instead.
34:35Old railway ties have created this mile-long stairway.
34:40It's not only a popular place for hikers to test their endurance, but also a favorite training ground for America's top athletes.
34:51For members of the U.S. wrestling, speed skating, and volleyball teams, this killer climb has become a rite of passage.
35:00But the bulk of their conditioning happens here, just down the hill, at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
35:10This facility can house more than 500 top athletes and coaches at any given time.
35:18Gold medalists swimmer Michael Phelps and skater Apollo Ono have both trained here.
35:24The facility lies 6,000 feet above sea level.
35:30Athletic activity is harder on the body in Colorado than it is at lower elevations.
35:36With less oxygen up here, the human body goes into overdrive.
35:41Muscles work more efficiently and lung capacity expands.
35:45It's the perfect place for athletes to push themselves to their limits.
35:48And it's what makes Denver the perfect place to hit a baseball.
35:54At Coors Field in Denver, workers are busy prepping for another home game of the Colorado Rockies.
36:01Since opening in 1995, Coors Field has earned a reputation as a hitter's park.
36:07Thanks to Denver's thin mountainous terrain, the Coors Field has become a popular place to train.
36:13But this advantage hasn't actually paid off yet for the Colorado Rockies.
36:18In nearly 20 years of play, the team has never won a World Series.
36:44Coors bought the naming rights for the stadium in 1995.
36:49It seemed like a perfect match for the beer that brands itself as having a mile-high taste.
36:58But it wasn't the altitude that first drew German brewmaster Adolf Coors here in 1873.
37:05It was the water.
37:06Here on the banks of Clear Creek, at the foot of the Rockies west of Denver, Coors found the perfect spot for a brewery.
37:15First selling his beer to thirsty miners, his business grew.
37:20The tiny operation he started is now the largest single-site brewery in the world.
37:26Every bottle and can of Coors is made right here, with the fresh snowmelt of the Rockies.
37:33There's a reason this is some of the best water in America.
37:37Follow Golden's Clear Creek into the mountains, and keep climbing until you reach the top, and you'll find out why.
37:48The Continental Divide.
37:54The Continental Divide crosses the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
37:59The Continental Divide crosses the United States from the northwest corner of Montana to the southwest corner of New Mexico.
38:08In Colorado, it follows a series of peaks through the Rockies.
38:13The tallest of these is also the tallest in the state, Mount Albert.
38:18This hiker, attempting the summit of Mount Albert's 14,433-foot peak, is walking the ridge that literally splits America in two.
38:28Any rain or melting snow to his left flows west, towards the Pacific, supplying water to thirsty populations in the southwest.
38:39The water that falls to the right of this ridge flows east, towards the Atlantic.
38:44It helps nourish communities and farms from Colorado's plains all the way to the Mississippi River.
38:52A quarter of all water in the U.S. originates here, in the Rocky Mountains, which is why protecting this watershed is so important.
39:03The problem is that the mountains along the Divide also hold some of the richest mineral deposits in the world.
39:10The challenge is to get those minerals out without polluting the drinking water of millions.
39:24Twenty-five miles north of Mount Albert, the Climax Mine straddles the Continental Divide.
39:32It's the largest producer of molybdenum in the world.
39:36Moly, as it's known for short, is a key mineral used in the production of steel.
39:42To mine it, this company cuts away the earth under the ore, and then, as the rock above falls and breaks, gathers it for processing.
39:56Inside this giant dome, chemicals are used to separate the valuable molybdenite from surrounding rock.
40:03The chemical waste is then sent to ponds, which cover several square miles.
40:10But underneath these ponds, a constant stream of groundwater flows directly to Denver's water system.
40:19In order to keep this water source pure, these tailings ponds have to be carefully designed and managed,
40:26so that mining chemicals don't leach into the groundwater below, and pollute the watershed of the Continental Divide.
40:43On the eve of Halloween, 1974, author Stephen King and his wife checked in at this hotel,
40:50in the Colorado Rockies.
40:53The Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park, already had a reputation as a very creepy hotel.
41:00For years, visitors had reported seeing ghosts and spirits in their rooms,
41:05and the hotel piano playing itself.
41:09All perfect material for a master of the macabre.
41:13Inspired by the hotel and its stories, Stephen King wrote his now-famous terrifying tale, The Shining.
41:21For the novel, King turned the Stanley into a fictional hotel named The Overlook.
41:27He even included his own room number.
41:31One of the hotel's workers had warned little boy Danny.
41:36Today's guests keep an eye out for King's characters.
41:40Spooky twins and dead ladies in bathtubs.
41:44But what if they were real?
41:48What if they were real?
41:51What if they were real?
41:54What if they were real?
41:57What if they were real?
42:00What if they were real?
42:02Spooky twins and dead ladies in bathtubs.
42:06The ghost of F.O. Stanley, the hotel's former owner, is also said to walk the halls.
42:15Had Stephen King visited here back in the 19th century, he might have felt right at home in this valley.
42:21That's because his background is Scots-Irish.
42:24Beginning in the 1870s, a wave of immigrants from the British Isles settled this corner of the Rockies.
42:31One of them was the Earl of Dunraven, an Irish nobleman with a passion for sport hunting,
42:37who bought much of the valley to create a game reserve.
42:43Descendants of those settlers still celebrate their heritage and their love of sport right here in town,
42:50at the annual Longspeak Scottish and Irish Highland Festival, the largest Celtic event in the West.
42:57For four days, men and women here compete in a wide variety of games.
43:04Bagpipe bands come from across the country to try to impress a panel of judges for top prize.
43:15The competition here is fierce.
43:18This game, called the sheaf toss, has been played since the Middle Ages.
43:21Using a pitchfork, each competitor has to hurl a 24-pound burlap sack over a bar,
43:27which moves higher and higher as the game goes on.
43:31The winner this year cleared 34 feet.
43:39The Longspeak Festival is named after a nearby mountain that lies in the heart of one of America's great national parks.
43:52Rising more than 14,200 feet, the summit of Longspeak is often obscured by the clouds.
44:01More than 50 people have died trying to climb it since the first ascent in 1868.
44:12Frequent lightning strikes at the top kill climbers,
44:17and snow blankets the peak most of the year.
44:22When that snow melts, it feeds small streams that flow off Longspeak and the surrounding mountains.
44:35Together, these watercourses form the headwaters of the Colorado River,
44:40long before it flows through the Grand Canyon and down to the Gulf of Mexico.
44:46For years, environmentalists fought hard to protect the park's natural resources.
44:52And finally, in 1915, they succeeded,
44:56when President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation to create the Rocky Mountain National Park.
45:04The park covers 416 square miles.
45:09Inside its borders are 114 peaks that rise above 10,000 feet.
45:16It's the highest national park in the U.S.,
45:20which is why this alpine ecosystem has been called the Land Above the Trees.
45:30It was from here that the Colorado River gradually forged a path west through the Rockies.
45:39The river's work has been impressive.
45:46Glenwood Canyon cuts right through the state, from east to west.
45:52It took millions of years for the Colorado River to carve out this canyon,
45:57so imagine having to build a highway through here in just 10.
46:03In the 1960s, the federal government proposed placing Interstate 70 at the bottom of the canyon.
46:10Environmentalists worried that it would damage the river and fought back.
46:16The resulting controversy stalled the project for years.
46:20Then, the freeway's engineers came up with an innovative and environmentally friendly solution.
46:28The roadways are suspended on giant cantilevers over the Colorado's banks to protect the river itself,
46:36building the road decks on top of each other limits the footprint on the land,
46:43and blasting key tunnels through the canyon's walls ensures that the river's natural bends remain intact.
46:54To keep traffic from clogging this pristine landscape,
46:58the highway's main tunnel is armed with cutting-edge technology that tracks every car that enters.
47:04If a vehicle doesn't exit out the other side exactly when it should,
47:09an alarm notifies officials that the highway might be blocked.
47:16Curving gracefully as it hugs the canyon walls,
47:19the Glenwood Canyon Highway has been hailed as a successful example of nature-friendly design,
47:25and is now celebrated as the crown jewel of America's interstate system.
47:34It's hard enough to build highways through the Rockies,
47:39so imagine what it takes to suspend a roadway across them.
47:44That's what engineers did here, to make the Royal Gorge Bridge.
47:52This wooden roadway soars 956 feet above the Arkansas River.
47:56Its 150-foot towers are embedded in the gorge's rocky cliffs.
48:03It was the highest suspension bridge in the world when it was built,
48:08and is one of the scariest for those who dare to cross.
48:15But what's surprising about this bridge is that it wasn't even really built for traffic.
48:20It's actually the centerpiece of a theme park,
48:24with a bungee ride that sends daredevils swinging out over the gorge,
48:31and a gondola.
48:34The Royal Gorge Bridge was commissioned by nearby Canyon City back in 1929
48:39to generate tourism dollars, and was completed in just six months.
48:44There are so many amazing feats of engineering all across Colorado,
48:49it's easy to take some of them for granted,
48:52like this seemingly simple road up Mount Evans.
48:57The summit of this mountain lies at 14,200 feet above sea level.
49:02It's the highest mountain in the world,
49:05and the highest mountain in the world.
49:09The summit of this mountain lies at 14,265 feet,
49:15atop a mass of former molten magma.
49:18But what's even more impressive is the 28-mile road to get here.
49:24It took 10 years to build, and climbs 7,000 feet.
49:29By the time it reaches the top, it's the highest paved road in America,
49:35leading to one of the highest observatories in the world,
49:39in America's highest state.
49:44It was the view from the top of Colorado's peaks
49:47that inspired John Denver to write his famous Rocky Mountain High,
49:52a song that's inspired thousands to come to Colorado,
49:58where America's great mountains meet its great plains,
50:02where gold and silver once rode the rails,
50:07and thrill-seekers hit the skies.
50:11This is the land of the Rocky Mountain High.
50:15This is Colorado.
50:32¶¶¶