Getting to Red Rocks via Uber/Lyft is a joy. Getting out of Red Rocks via Uber/Lyft is an absolute nightmare.
The mistake I made was not pre-arranging my ride out. I mistakenly thought I could just line up and grab one and be on my way after a short wait. Here's the problem:
Red Rocks is in Morrison, which is a good piece west of Denver. The smart rideshare drivers will be there already, but there aren't enough cars compared to people at the show. With traffic, the drivers will have an hour drive east back to the Denver area, then an hour drive back to Morrison, if they don't take other fares and they decide to make the hike. Most don't.
I was at a summer show and there was a rainstorm, so the show was delayed. We started late, had a great time, but finished really late. Coming out of a show, there were ubers there so I felt solid. I pulled up the app and quickly learned there there would be no ride home for us. Literally. There were no vehicles that hadn't been booked, and none were coming back. Keep in mind that if you get stuck out there, you're properly stuck. In the mountains stuck. I ended up paying some random dude $100 cash to let my wife and I climb in the trunk of a van he had ordered, and $100 cash to the uber driver to take us off the books since he had already accepted the fare. I felt lucky about it, too.
Granted, this was like 2015, and in the 7 years since I'm sure the number of rideshare drivers has increased exponentially, so it may be better. It was also crazy late because of the delay so fewer drivers were out. Confluence of factors that sabotaged me. Still, the prospects of us being stuck had my wife in tears and me in a panic.
I'd rather book a damned limo than deal with that again.
