Showing posts with label Golden Colorado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Golden Colorado. Show all posts

Sunday, August 23, 2026

The "M Climb" Event at the Colorado School of Mines


We live close to the town of Golden, Colorado. It's a wonderful place to visit, full of attractions and things to do. Coors Brewery is located there, as well as the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, the Colorado Railroad Museum, the Golden History Museum and Park, and many other attractions.

 I've visited and blogged about all these places in the past, and if you are interested to learn more about them you can find those posts by using the search feature on my blog's sidebar.


Golden lies along Clear Creek at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded during the Pike's Peak gold rush on June 16, 1859, the mining camp was originally named Golden City in honor of Thomas L. Golden.




The entire state of Colorado has a long mining history. My husband and I have enjoyed learning more about this history and its associated traditions as we have traveled all around the state in the past 13 years that we have lived here.




Located to the west of Golden is Mount Zion with a large letter "M" near its summit.



The large white "M" is maintained by the Colorado School of Mines. There is a tradition over 100 years old in which incoming freshmen climb 3 miles up the mountain carrying a 10-pound rock from their hometown, which is then whitewashed and added to the "M" design. 

This traditional  M Event occurred this week! 

The freshmen students are given a hard hat to wear on their climb up, and many sophomores, juniors, and seniors, who are called by their nicknames the "Orediggers," line the route to cheer them on and teach them to sing the college's "fight" song, along with many who douse the climbers with water to cool them off!

The "M" has been permanently lighted at night since 1932 and is visible for many miles in the area.


Please click on both of these informational placards, which will enlarge the photos for easier reading about the "M Climb." 



Placards around the town tell stories about the tradition, and the letter "M" stands as a symbol for the prestigious engineering college, the Colorado School of Mines.



The Colorado School of Mines is a public research university that offers programs in engineering and applied science.
 
It is also home to the National Earthquake Information Center, and nearby is the National Laboratory of the Rockies, a federally funded science institution.




The Colorado School of Mines also has a very interesting, free-to-visit Mines Museum of Earth Science filled with over 7,400 square feet of rocks, minerals, fossils, and other fascinating Earth Science-related objects. It is definitely worth a visit!




This short YouTube video shows the fun M Climb Event!

Graduating students are invited to take a rock from the M as a souvenir of their time at the college.

One-room schoolhouse at the South Park City Museum in Fairplay, Colorado.

It was also "Back to School" time for our grandchildren this week!
We have two grandchildren who are in Middle School and two in High School, and they were all excited to begin a new school year and see their classmates again.

I loved this quote:
“School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.”
 ~ Lon Watters


As summer winds down, I am really looking forward to the fall season and cooler temperatures ahead. Autumn has always been my favorite season!

I can also be found on







Posted by at 30 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Sunday, February 9, 2025

A Winter Visit to Red Rock Amphitheater With a Dear Friend


 Last March my good friend Rosemary visited us from New York, as her daughter had a business trip to the Denver area, so she decided to go along with her to visit us. My husband and I were thrilled to show Rosemary some of our local sights for the few days she was in Colorado.  First, we showed her some of the red rocks that are in our Littleton neighborhood. (All photos in this post will enlarge if clicked on)


Click on the photo collage to enlarge.

We then drove to Morrison, Colorado, where the iconic outdoor Red Rocks Amphitheater is located, nestled among red rock formations in the Colorado Front Range foothills. My husband and I have attended many concerts in Red Rocks since we moved to Colorado, and I've blogged about it many times. Most days it is also open for visits to its Visitor's Center Museum and many surrounding hiking trails. 




On this visit, we decided to take one of the trails to sightsee the scenery.


The elevation of this area is 6,391 feet---1948 m---so the views east show the Colorado plains and the mile-high city of Denver in the distance.


Looking even further east I could see the iconic white triangles of Denver International Airport in the distance.



We enjoyed all the sights along the trail...



...until we wound around to steps leading up to the amphitheater's stage area.





There we could stand on the stage and see the two giant red rock formations on either side of the seats, which are named Shiprock and Creation. 

One of the most interesting aspects of the Red Rocks Amphitheatre is its exceptional natural acoustic qualities. The rock formations create a natural sound system, providing unmatched acoustics for concerts and performances.





Driving out of the Red Rocks Amphitheater Park area we passed many more beautiful natural red rock formations that were formed around 160 million years ago!



Rosemary was amazed by all the beauty of the red rock area, and we were looking forward to showing her more of our favorite places--see more in my next posts.


PS: Thank you so very much for all the kind comments on my prior post about my husband's surgery. He continues to do well and is getting back more of his strength all the time.  I'm happy to be back blogging again! I missed you all!

I can also be found on




Posted by at 26 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Colorado Mines Museum of Earth Science Part 2






In my last blog post--click here-- I showed part one of the Mines Museum of Earth Science located at the Colorado School of Mines  On the upper floor of the museum is a vast collection of rocks and minerals and other fascinating Earth Science related materials. On the lower level, located inside a large safe display is one of two Goodwill Moon Rocks collected during the Apollo Moon Mission. (All the photos in this blog post will enlarge for easier viewing if clicked on)



The full moon rock display of the largest moon rock.

In 1974, President Nixon gave each state and 160 countries a set of two “Goodwill” moon rocks collected during the Apollo 17 mission. 




More information from the display.





Another display had this small portion of a moon rock from the Taurus Littrow Valley, along with a small flag of the State of Colorado that accompanied the astronauts to the moon!





The full display of this moon rock





Further info about the rock from the display.

Colorado has a rich history of space exploration, with 21 astronauts either born or having attended college in Colorado. The state is home to one of the largest aerospace industries in the country, boasting 300 aerospace-related companies

 



Inside another safe is the Miss Colorado Crown containing over 600 gemstones and 21 diamonds. 

The Miss Colorado competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Colorado in the Miss America pageant. Colorado has won the Miss America crown on three occasions.




Please click on the photo to enlarge it


The tiara was worn by Miss Colorado for the first time in July 1973.




The crown features a variety of gems, including aquamarine, the state gemstone. White zicrons at the top of the crown represent the snow and ice of the Rocky Mountains, while dark blue sapphires below symbolize water. Twenty-one diamonds in the centers of Columbine flowers feature amethyst petals, the leaves around them made from dark green tourmalines and light green peridots. At the base of the crown, lightly golden and orange citrine and topaz resemble wheat.




More info about the crown from its display.





Most of the museum's collections of gemstones and minerals are on display on the upper level, but there was this interesting map of the USA with the most common minerals found in each state.






There were also collections in the lower level from all around the world. This display showed minerals from Europe




Minerals from Africa




Minerals from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Australia, and Asia





There are also some displays of fossils in the museum.  An Ursus Spilaeus or Cave Bear skull from Romania is in the photo above.





A Mastodon tusk from Alaska, and two Mastodon teeth.



Various other fossils





A 67-pound Canyon Diablo Meteorite was found in a crater in Coconino County, Arizona.




There was a walk-through mine exhibit in the museum that contained this amazing ultraviolet mineral display.  With the flick of a switch, the minerals on the left would glow with their natural fluorescence under short and long-wave ultraviolet light.



One could spend hours reading all the displays showing mining tools, the ways minerals are incorporated into objects that are in use today, and many other aspects of earth science.  Visiting the Mines Museum of Earth Science is certainly a wonderful way to learn more about the scientific richness of our earth.



After our museum visit, our friends and my husband and I drove over to the nearby Fossil Trace Golf Course in Golden, Colorado, where we had a delicious lunch at Schnepf's Restaurant inside the clubhouse. The golf course and restaurant views are very scenic and inside are other examples of fossils found in the area.

 It was the culmination of a perfect day out together!





Wishing all who celebrate this week a very Happy Thanksgiving! I'll be taking next week off from blogging as it will be a very busy time for me. I'll be back in December,  See you then!

You can also find me on



Bookmark and Share
Posted by at 14 comments:
Labels: , ,

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Colorado Mines Museum of Earth Science Part 1


Mines Museum, located at 1310 Maple Street, in the Colorado School of Mines campus in Golden, Colorado had its beginnings in 1874 with the collection of geologist, Arthur Lakes.  It includes the historic Colorado State Mineral Collection created by the Bureau of Mines in the 1890s. The museum serves as the state repository for Colorado’s mineral heritage. It showcases the most extensive public collection of minerals from Colorado, along with examples from around the USA and the world, as well as two goodwill moon rocks collected during the Apollo 17 mission.



My husband and I arranged a visit to the museum with friends in October.  It was the second time that we had visited the museum-- click here to see that post--and we knew the friends who had not been here would enjoy the visit. 




If you click on each photo x 2 it will enlarge to its fullest size for easier viewing of the labels in the displays of minerals, fossils, meteorites, and gems.

There were so many displays on two floors, so I decided to make this a two-part blog post so I can include most of my photos.






I was always a rock hound, an avid collector of rocks when I was a child and I wish I had a museum such as this one to visit when I was young, as I might have pursued geology as a career!  




 I still pick up rocks from different locations so that I can learn more about them. Colorado has a very diverse geology, so I'm constantly fascinated by all that I see as we travel around the state.





The Mines Museum is housed in a newly built building that was completed in 2003.  It also displays gold, silver, and copper in their original form, fossils, meteorites, and mining artifacts, in its well-lit clear glass display cases and shelves.




There is an entire room full of examples of gold mined from different areas in Colorado and also around the world. It was easy to see how this element created the Gold Rush frenzy in the middle 1800s both in the mountains of California and Colorado.




The Mines Museum attracts 30,000 visitors a year!





The Mines Museum has more than 2,000 items currently on display and more than 40,000 total items in its collection, so there will always be something new to see. They regularly rotate exhibits to provide fresh educational experiences and displays for their visitors to enjoy.




I particularly enjoyed seeing the display of these North Table Mountain rocks and minerals. as seen in the collage above. There was a view of North Table Mountain in the distance from the window next to the display. My husband and I hiked to the top of that mountain a few summers ago and it was like entering another world! You can see that post on this link.




The museum also has Mineral ID days where one can bring in objects from your private collection to have a geologist identify them.  Those days are posted on the website.





One of the best things about the museum is that Admission is FREE!

Regular Hours: Mon. – Sat. 9AM-4PM and Sun. 1PM-4PM

(CLOSED JULY 4TH, CHRISTMAS DAY, AND NEW YEAR’S DAY)




All groups of 10 or more visitors are required to schedule their visit at least 48 hours in advance. If you do not schedule your visit in advance, you may not be admitted into the museum due to current capacity limits.  See the website for more information.





The Museum also offers paid guided tours for groups of 15 people or less. For groups larger than 15 people, please email museumevents@mines.edu.  See the website for more information.





Click on and enlarge more photos to view just a small sample of the displays  ...






















Weren't they all so beautiful?

In my next post, I'll show the moon rocks, meteorites, fossils, and the sparkling Miss Colorado Crown containing over 600 gemstones and 21 diamonds that we also viewed at the museum.  I hope you'll come back to see more!


You can also find me on

Bookmark and Share
Posted by at 10 comments:
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)