Next Sunday’s moment in the spotlight for Oscar award winners is a flash in the pan compared with the footage collected by thousands of cameras steadily filming Colorado’s most — and least — trafficked places.
Hang out at the intersection of Ninth and Pearl streets in Boulder, and G.W. Hannaway & Associates’ webcam will serve as a stationary paparazzo.
Driving south on Interstate 25, just past the Boulder turnpike? Smile: You’re on camera.
And for those who think they can escape the digital eye by seeking refuge in the high country, think again.
There’s a Tundracam on Niwot Ridge, a webcam training its gaze on Vail Pass and a webcam monitoring the Glacier Basin Campground and the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park. There are hundreds more.
There’s no escape. Not everyone who lives in Colorado knows where to find Dove Creek or Beulah. But both of those hamlets own webcams that make sure everyone in Dove Creek (dolorescounty ) and Beulah (instacam ) knows who’s in town.
The Colorado Department of Transportation () maintains webcams from Gobblers Knob to the Utah state line. While the CDOT cams principally are meant for drivers wondering about road conditions, other Colorado webcam aggregators can lean toward serendipity.
For more than 10 years, Boulder Realtor Dick Gilbert has maintained , an exhaustive treasury of links to webcams throughout the state.
Want to know what the exterior of the Dog Bar & Grill in Cuchara looks like right now? Gilbert can help out. What’s the weather like in Tiny Town? He’s got a link to that.
Are the giraffes out at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo? Gilbert links to the zoo’s giraffe cam and to its meerkat cam. (Both species tend to stay indoors if temperatures drop below 40 degrees Farenheit.)
Other novel webcam links go to the top of West Sopris Creek, the Snowmass water pump station, the Aspen square pool, Glenwood Springs’ kayak wave park (seasonal), and Red Rocks Amphitheater. In the summer, ticketless netizens could get a hiccupy view of a concert there, with the Red Rocks webcam refreshing the silent stage view every few seconds.
Until a few years ago, visitors to Saguache had the opportunity to watch each other on a local broadcast channel, thanks to a camera perched on a hillside overlooking town.
“I thought, ‘Man, is that cool!’ when I found out about it,” said Saguache County Sheriff Mike Norris.
“I thought it could come in handy on cases we were working on. But then I learned it wasn’t recorded, just a live feed. And now it’s not up anymore.”
