Valley Curtain Site
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Rifle Gap State Recreation and Reservoir Area (Valley Curtain Site)
10 miles north of Rifle on Garfield County 325 at the junction of East and West Rifle creeks
CCC labor refined this Rifle city park, which has become a state recreation area. It gained fame as the setting for the most extravagant art happening in Colorado. New York artist Christo Javacheff, who wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris and has decorated California coastlines, draped the canyon of Rifle Creek with a bright orange curtain. Christo and his assistants took two years to install the 1,368-by-365-foot nylon curtain across the Vshaped canyon and Colorado 13. After a lavish grand opening, however, the curtain was shredded by a harsh critic—Mother Nature.
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