Hi Rockin, welcome to our neck of the woods! Here's a few places to see and find cool stuff near Colorado Springs - it's in the other direction from Denver, but since warmer weather is coming, thought I'd post this for everyone's perusal -
1) Gold Camp Road: exit I-25 west on Cimmeron/Hwy-24, go a mile or so, then turn left (south) on S 26th Street, which turns into Bear Creek Rd, which turns into High Drive - a very interesting little dirt road (one-lane in places!) which has GREAT scenery and is lots of fun to drive. You'll pass the closed Captain Jack parking lot on the right... keep driving. In a couple miles you'll get to a large, flat parking lot at the intersection of High Drive and Gold Camp Rd, before Helen Hunt Falls. You can park there and walk along the closed portion of Gold Camp Rd. This used to be the Short Line railroad thoroughfare in the Cripple Creek gold rush days, but a tunnel partially collapsed in 1988 and was never repaired. It's an easy, beautiful walk and I've found smokey quartz crystals and amazonites in the gravel slides right along the road! If you keep walking, you'll reach the closed-off tunnel #3, but there's a well-maintained trail that branches off to the left and over it, and drops you down to North Cheyenne Creek (just a couple feet wide, you can easily jump it or use the stepping stones). The trail will take you back to Gold Camp Rd and you can continue walking and rock hounding along the road and hillside for miles.
2) Another place where I've found cool fossils, including a few shark teeth, shells, and shell imprints, is just outside Red Rocks Canyon Open Space, which is in itself a gorgeous place to walk. Instead of turning left on S 26th Street, go a short ways further and turn left on 31st St. There's a parking lot on the right and a wall of fossil-bearing shale. NOTE: You may want to check and see whether it's still permissible to collect here. I found mine several years ago prior to the opening of the park. The maps indicate that the park boundary bumps up against 31 Street, so I'm not sure what the policy is. If you want a beautiful walk through the park, drive past 31st Street and take the next left into the Red Rocks parking lot. By the way, I've attached an interesting paper on the fossils around Red Rocks Open Space which was posted online by UCCS.
3) As others have mentioned, there's still snow at the higher elevations, but there is a private quarry next to the Florissant Fossil Beds, located about an hour up Hwy 24, where you can purchase pieces of rich fossil-bearing shale. It's probably too cold to sit at the picnic tables and slice the pieces open with razors, like you can in the summer, but they have a small shop where you can purchase fossils and bags containing chunks of shale to take with you. Even in the winter, the Fossil Beds and museum - with 10-foot diameter fossilized redwood tree trunks - is really something to see. ALSO, at the intersection of Hwy 24 and Teller Cty 1, where you turn left to the fossil beds, is the free Florissant museum, which contains one of the biggest double-termination smokey quartz crystals found ever in North America. No kidding, this thing is around 3 feet long! It was found just north of Florissant, near Crystal Peak, which you see mentioned frequently on this site.
4) Not really a good place for fossils or gemstones (there's not much to be found), but do check out Garden of the Gods. A lot of my out-of-town visitors come with the idea that it's just a little city park, and they are astounded at how big it really is. Personal recommendation: pay the $1.50 at the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center to watch the 15-min multimedia presentation "How Did Those Red Rocks Get There?" It is well worth the quick overview of the geology of the Pikes Peak region. (Hint: don't bother eating at the visitor center - instead, head to the Garden of the Gods Trading Post on the south end of the park. The Balanced Rock Cafe is the best-kept secret in town. Be sure to check out the Native American arts in the back room, too!)
...and I could go on and on and on! If anyone here would like more recommendations, shoot me an email!
I should have been a travel agent instead of an aerospace engineer....