Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Pike’s Peak or Bust!

Finally, we were really going to the top of Pike’s Peak, after three days of waiting for reservations to ride the cog railway. 

The Pike's Peak Station

All Aboard!

I was fairly nervous about the altitude (14,000+ feet), so I bought a can of oxygen that contains five spritzes—just in case we needed it.  As we ascended, the air got thinner, the wind picked up, it became colder, and the vegetation became scarcer. 

It was an easy ride—75 minutes up, 45 minutes on top, 75 minutes down with commentary along the way.  We saw two mountain goats and a marmot that blended so nicely into the rocks that we almost didn’t see them.  

Find the Mountain Goat!

Once we reached the summit, I felt as if I was on a ship, tilting to the right and my legs were wobbly.Robin felt some similar effects and was well aware of the oxygen debt; however, we did not need the canned oxygen, but we were happy to descend.

So, we made it to the top! 

Zebulon Pike, an explorer for whom the Peak is named, never reached the top.  While his party surveyed the mountain in their lightweight summer uniforms, it became too cold to go on. But because he was the one who reported the mountain in the territory that the U.S. just bought from France, the early settlers named it for him.

Also, Katherine Lee Bates, a school teacher from

America the Beautiful Plaque atop Pike's Peak

Massachusetts, visited the mountain by carriage and was inspired with the vastness and beauty.  She returned to Colorado Springs and wrote a poem that later became “America, the Beautiful.”

Pike’s Peak is not the tallest mountain in Colorado; in fact, it’s #31!  Pike’s Forest is 1.2 million acres, and we were told that the entire State of Delaware could fit into it.

When we left the train, we immediately headed north to Estes Park, CO, gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park—usually about three hours away; however, we managed to arrive in the Denver area near rush hour and a wreck had shut down I-25.  That delayed us by about an hour, and then we encountered a detour on the road that led into the park.  Once again, we found ourselves winding around the mountain roads in the dark.  Robin says he doesn’t think he wants to see those roads in the daylight.