Colorado's Gold Dome and Mile High Steps, One Free Weekday

Tours leave the first-floor north visitor desk on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, take about an hour, and admit 30 people first come; groups of ten or more need a reservation two weeks ahead. The dome sits 99 steps above the third floor, and only the guided tour goes up, stairs all the way. Give the west steps twenty minutes: the fifteenth was engraved in 1909, a 1969 student resurvey added a bronze marker on the eighteenth, and a 2003 remeasurement put the third on the thirteenth.

Walk from the west steps to Civic Center Station in about five minutes. The 16th Street FreeRide covers the run to Union Station every four to twelve minutes, seven days a week, with no fare and no ticket. The Great Hall closes for cleaning every day from 12:00 to 5:30 a.m.; overnight access belongs to Amtrak passengers and Crawford Hotel guests, not to a late-night look around the hall. Terminal Bar occupies the old ticket office off the hall, opens daily at 11 a.m., and takes no reservations.

Start early enough to reach the desk before 2 p.m. The building closes at 5 p.m. and stays shut all weekend, and state holidays close it too, with Veterans Day on November 11 and Thanksgiving on November 26 next. The Capitol visit and the shuttle cost nothing, though Terminal Bar is a paid stop if you want a drink, and the shuttle covers the long middle stretch, with cold weather touching only two short walks outside. Run the pair in this order and the indoor hours fit around the walking.