Spectators with huge heavy-metal hair and others wearing neon tracksuits gathered shoulder to shoulder Friday to watch the Snowdown Light Parade along Main Avenue.
Celebrating the “Back to the ’80s” theme, some floats and costumes drew inspiration from movies like “Ghostbusters” and “Rocky.” Others drew from TV shows like the “Smurfs” and fads like boom boxes.
In Durango’s case, the Smurfs were playing samba and the boom box could have housed a small apartment, while dancers followed, rocking out to ’80s classics like “Highway to Hell.”
“I like the ability in this theme to do whatever you want ... Last year’s theme was narrow,” said Mirka Sturek, referring to the 2015’s Steampunk Snowdown.
The crowd of thousands welcomed favorites back like the Fort Lewis College Marching Band and the Durango Freestyle Wheelbarrow Team.
Wildly rolling up and down the street, the wheelbarrows wowed and confused the crowd.
Chaz Avila, visiting from Laramie, Wyoming, hadn’t seen anything like it.
New residents Ashley Elrod and Josh Emerson, who recently moved to Durango from Phoenix, were impressed with the turnout, the fire from the hot air balloon baskets that lit up the night and the monstrous locomotive float.
“That was spectacular,” Elrod said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
