Evans, CO Outdoor Activities

Total Chaos Paintball brings video games into vivid reality, hosting colorful, officiated skirmishes on a 12,000-square-foot indoor battleground modeled after the Wasteland map from Call of Duty 2. Under constant pursuit by the opposing team, combatants duck down alleyways, hide behind urban debris, or outwit fast-moving opponents with quick presses of the pause button. The center can also simulate the stress of nighttime operations, killing the lights while a sound system broadcasts high-octane tunes to keep heart rates accelerated.

Diving for more than 30 years, Ron Busch—PADI master instructor and owner of Coral Key Scuba & Travel Center—first decided to share his passion for underwater exploration in 1995 by building a facility that catered to all facets of scuba and snorkeling. Since its construction, the center has been recognized as a PADI five-star training center that offers scuba and snorkeling classes, professional gear, and diving trips to far-off locales such as Isla Mujeres. An avid traveler, Busch entrusts day-to-day duties to the center's manager, a PADI master scuba diver and trainer, Randy Partch, who teaches 22 different diving specialties and boasts certification to repair and service many different brands of scuba equipment and one kind of Xerox machine. Factory-trained technicians populate the center's repair shop, mending, maintaining, and returning equipment back to owners with an average one-week turnaround.

Over the past 20 years, Denver Equestrians owner Corinne M. Lettau has been mastering proper horse training and horse communication while studying under elite professionals such as 1994 Olympic bronze medalist Michelle Gibson. At her 32,000-square-foot equestrian complex, Corinne and a team of talented instructors share their bond with horses by leading students through riding lessons, horsemanship classes, and rider assessments. On large indoor and outdoor arenas, students cover the basics of oat-powered transportation, such as mounting, dismounting, and transitioning from walk to halt. In group classes, students glean horseback know-how alongside up to five other riders. During private lessons, students build upon individual strengths and weaknesses and discuss the advancement of elective hoof surgery for humans.

Fifty horses roam the prairies and Rocky Mountain foothills of Chatfield Stables, and dedicated trainers call to each of them by name, having known many of them since they were lanky and awkward foals. Trainers organize an extensive schedule of programs and activities to ensure that all these horses receive healthy amounts of play and exercise. Programs include horse camps for riders as young as seven years old, with activities such as grooming, saddling, and riding. The training team also leads riding and horsemanship lessons, along with leisurely trail rides through miles of forest trails, which follow the Platte River where riders can attempt to test their newfound abilities on river-dwelling seahorses.

SwimLabs Swim School’s instructors have two priorities: teaching kids and adults how to swim and helping competitive swimmers optimize their strokes. In addition to CPR and first-aid certifications backed by years of experience, the instructors are aided by swimming-pool technology. Their private and small-group lessons take place in Endless Pools with adjustable currents, each about 10’x16’ and heated to 90–92 degrees to prevent polar-bear infestations. The custom currents can give beginner students a boost or challenge advanced swimmers with more forceful resistance waves. As swimmers paddle against the current, the staff records their strokes with Dartfish video technology. They then analyze the results together, comparing the swimmer’s form to a video of proper technique.

Amid the crisp, thinning mountain air steeped in the aroma of pine trees, a single-track trail winds through a dense evergreen forest past sweeping views of the valley below. In 2005, wilderness enthusiast Stefan Van der Steen founded Denver Adventures as a means of introducing others to scenes such as this by immersing them in the great outdoors through adventures such as ziplines, hiking treks, and rafting excursions. Stefan and his team of knowledgeable guides lead groups to an elevation of 8,000 feet for zipline tours on an Association for Challenge Course Technology–certified course, where riders reach speeds up to 50 miles per hour past Colorado’s naturally blurry trees.

Denver Adventures also leads hiking, snowshoeing, and mountain-biking treks through the uneven terrain, gauging participants' skill throughout to determine whether they can traverse a steep uphill climb or do a Superman seat grab over a row of sleeping bears. Making use of all the wilderness has to offer, guides also take explorers on rafting trips through canyons and past gold mines, or train them to navigate vertical routes using top-rope techniques during five-hour rock-climbing excursions.