Confluence Park

Denver began here in 1858 when gold prospectors camped at the point where Cherry Creek runs into the South Platte, and the city came back to it in the 1970s when Joe Shoemaker's Greenway Foundation turned a dumping ground into the first piece of the river trail system. Today it is a terraced amphitheater of steps and lawns around a short whitewater chute where kayakers and tubers run laps on summer afternoons and kids wade in the shallows below. Shoemaker Plaza, the heart of the park, reopened in October 2017 after a two-year, $9.4 million rebuild that widened the trails and fixed the ramps. The Cherry Creek Trail and the South Platte River Trail both start here, REI's flagship sits in the 1901 tramway powerhouse on the west bank, and My Brother's Bar is up the hill on Platte Street. Free, open dawn to 11pm, and busiest on the first hot weekend of June.

Why go. Feet in the river, kayaks in the chute, skyline behind you, ten minutes from Union Station.

Come on a weekday evening in July with a sandwich; parking is the REI garage (paid, validated with a purchase) or the meters on Platte Street, and the water is snowmelt cold until August.