Colorado 2022: Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods and Colorado Springs – 8/7/22 – 4 Miles
In a high-level planning meeting (pizza, beer & cider) Jim and I pitched summer travel ideas to each other. We’ve gotten good at this game: come up with five ideas each, do enough research to show you’ll work for it, and together we whittle it down to one or two for further study.
Contestants included Idaho, Oregon, Upstate New York, Colorado, and a few others, all outdoors oriented. Colorado wasn’t at the top of either list, until we started digging deeper. National parks? Check. Cooler temperatures in summer? Check. Easy flight? A direct and inexpensive flight made Colorado our top choice.
Ten days before our departure, our daughter-in-law suffered a serious broken ankle, leaving her in a townhouse with their 4-month-old baby, 2 dogs, 2 cats, unable to walk or drive. We live nearby and considered canceling our trip, but friends rallied to help – and best of all, their little family moved into our larger and more accessible house during our absence. So we were “helping” by leaving!
Flying to Denver at the crack of dawn, traveling light with no checked bags, the only unnecessary thing I carried was a persistent cough and cold from baby Benjamin. We picked up our rental car and headed to Colorado Springs, the first stop on our ambitious road trip.
En route we stopped at Walmart to buy food and supplies. No checked bags meant I didn’t bring my hiking poles. I bought a set at Walmart for $22 and they were perfect for our short dayhikes. Much better than a checked bag costing $35 each way (not to mention the possibility of the airline losing it)!
We spent our first two nights in Old Colorado City, first established as a town in the summer of 1859 during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, providing supplies to eager miners on their way to Ute Pass to get rich quick. It is now a neighborhood in Colorado Springs. Late in the afternoon, we walked around as the artsy shops were closing. At OCC Brewery, we sat at the sidewalk bar with a view of Pikes Peak on the horizon and watched the world go by.
Our Airbnb was a repurposed trolley car, unique, adorable, well-equipped and comfortable. A long travel day with the time change - lights out at 8pm! Jim was glad I had serious cough and cold medicine.
After a good night’s rest and morning coffee, we headed to the mountain known to the indigenous Ute people as Tavá Kaa-vi, the Sun Mountain. In 1806, it was “discovered” by American explorer Zebulon Pike. Read more about the Ute people here and check out a detailed timeline of history of the mountain here. For this blog post I will refer to the mountain as Pikes Peak.
Pikes Peak, part of the Rocky Mountains, is the most visited mountain in North America. It’s one of Colorado’s 14-ers, 14,115 feet above sea level. It’s also 8,000 feet higher than Colorado Springs, so we knew we were going up up up on Pikes Peak Highway 20 miles to the summit. The road is crazy steep in some places, with several pull-offs to try to capture the view. Good luck with that.
The top of the mountain is a broad moonscape of rocks (basketball size to tailgate cooler size) with boardwalks to keep humans off whatever vegetation there is. The temperature had dropped dramatically so we donned hats and coats.
Jim had never been at elevation above 10,000 feet and when he walked up a short set of steps at his regular pace, he was surprised to be short-winded at just a little effort. I also felt it, but expected to, but I didn’t get a headache as I had feared. [My experiences with altitude have been mixed, sometimes okay, sometimes debilitating.]
On the drive up we passed several cyclists climbing to the top. One of them arrived at the summit sign as we were taking photos. Jim was excited and asked about the climb – the guy had ridden from Montreal! In a charming French accent he said, “Yes, I am in very good shape.”
We wandered around all the boardwalks and overlooks, met a man named Steve who was on a trip to celebrate his 65th birthday. Everyone should be like Steve – do something awesome on your birthday!
One of these plus coffee had me buzzing for hours.
Next on the agenda: Garden of the Gods (another sacred site for the Ute people and other indigenous nations). This 1,341-acre National Natural Landmark was donated to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909 by the family of deceased owner Charles Elliott Perkins, with the provision that it be a free public park. [Read more history here on Wikipedia.]
We began at the VERY crowded visitor center, but couldn’t get through the mob to see exhibits, so we grabbed a map showing 21 miles of trails. Hmmm? With the benefit of two minutes of advice from an intrepid staffer, we went for the standard option: the Gateway Trail to the Perkins Central Garden Trail that winds through the heart of the rock formations.
Paved walkways, good signage and maps make this an accessible and interesting walk for all ages. The red rocks seem to erupt from the flat valley floor. Did I mention it was VERY crowded and VERY HOT? So let’s just look at some photos and make up your own captions.
(aka Gatlinburg to my NC friends)
Back at our cozy little trolley home-away-from-home, a thunderstorm came through, lulling us to sleep with rain pounding on the roof. Tomorrow we’re heading south.
~Robert A. Heinlein
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