Sleeping Giant (Bear Creek Park)

The Sleeping Giant is a giant reclining cowboy playground feature at Bear Creek Park in southwest Denver, built around an existing oversized purple sombrero slide from the 1970s. During a 2009 park renovation, landscape architecture firm Design Concepts -- working with neighbors and City of Denver officials -- reworked the sombrero slide into the giant cowboy's hat and added jean-clad knees and an oversized ('XXXXL') cowboy boot emerging from the play mound, depicting a Bunyan-scale cowboy who 'settled into Bear Creek for an afternoon nap.' A story plaque at the site narrates the giant cowboy's tale. The $500K redesign preserved the beloved original slide while resolving complaints about the prior sombrero-only design.