Bundled up against the cold, 12-year-old Sydnie Rounsville, stood on a snowboard with a Colorado mountain backdrop behind her, posing for photos as a friend snapped away.
Rounsville, however, wasn’t in the high country Thursday night, New Year’s Eve, she was in front of a painted background in downtown Denver on the 16th Street Mall, awaiting fireworks to celebrate the New Year.
Businesses on the mall were busy serving celebrants, pedicabs and horse drawn carriages were out in force.
A woman performed with a hula hoop, busker style, entertaining passersby in front of a busy hotel.
A homeless man, with long hair and beard, no hat, sat on a street corner shivering under a blanket. Revelers streamed by.
Brett Humenuik, a pedicab driver, bundled up in layered clothing including a wool, black and red checkered duck hunting cap with ear flaps.
He’s worked First Night in Denver the past eight years.
“I know it’s going to be busy,” Humenuik said. “It will be a crazy night.”
New Year’s Eve means “good money” for Humenuik, a former, self-described Breckenridge “ski bum!”
Humenuik said he’d work through the night, likely until 5 a.m. New Years Day, and pedal about 40 miles.
Extremely cold weather freezes gear fluids of the pedicab and “it’s like pedaling with the brake on,” Humenuik said.
The overnight low in Denver was expected to be around 4 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
“When I stop, I get cold because of the sweat,” Humenuik said. “I’ll sweat tremendously.”
Work and sweat couldn’t keep Humenuik for feeling celebratory.
“I wish everyone out there in Denver a Happy New Year!
“For Denver I see success” in 2016, Humenuik added. “It’s an awesome city, I couldn’t live anywhere else.”
Duck Soup, an eatery on the mall that typically serves the daily downtown lunch crowd, was open late Thursday night to serve the crowd for the early 9 p.m. family fireworks show.
Owner David Fitzgerald said his restaurant and staff were prepared for a busy night, as well as a busy upcoming 2016.
“We’re going to have a great year,” Fitzgerald said.
New in 2016 at Duck Soup will be soup flights, served after 3 p.m.
“We’ll call them ‘delayed flights,’ ” Fitzgerald said with a smile.
Shutting down after the early fireworks show allowed Fitzgerald to celebrate New Year at home with his daughter in the nearby Riverfront Park neighborhood.
Fireworks along the mall above the downtown skyline were scheduled to be repeated at midnight, after the traditional countdown.
Rob Whiting, of Highlands Ranch, is among those making the familiar, traditional New Year’s resolution of losing weight. “Ten pounds” to be precise, he said.
Whiting, a family friend of Sydnie, took the elementary school student downtown for the fireworks show.
After stepping off the snowboard, Sydnie contemplated a question about what the New Year might hold. The preteen said she was concerned about “World War III” and the threat of terrorism, specifically ISIS.
After Rounsville’s revelation, Whiting said he had a wish for 2016.
“Peace!”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822, knicholson@denverpost.com or @kierannicholson
