Pike's Peak - Driving to the Top of One of God's Taller Wonders

Reveille from the army base a mile away from our campground woke us up early again. But it was a good thing this morning. That's because we had a reservation to start the drive up Pikes Peak at 8:00 a.m. Just like so many things in the peak of summer, tourists can't just show up when they want. Even though we are hikers, we know that we weren't in the kind of shape needed to complete the 13-mile hike to the top of Pikes Peak. So our reservation was for us to drive our pickup to the top. 

We've driven a lot of mountain roads, but this was the first time we've paid for that privilege. Besides a $2 reservation fee, it costs $20 per adult in the vehicle. But once again, being old saved us $2 per person.

The 19-mile road was steep at first, and we noticed that it had very few guard rails.

Our first stop was at Crystal Reservoir, about six miles past the pay station. The guy at the entrance gate suggested this stop, where we could take a picture of the lake with Pikes Peak in the background. He also said we could kayak in the reservoir, and we planned to do that on the way back. 

He also recommended we get to the top of Pikes Peak as early as possible before the usual afternoon clouds could obscure our views. So we took a quick picture of Sasquatch (and Mark posed like Sasquatch), before we left Crystal Reservoir.

We continued up and up along the switchbacks, and the highway looked like a snake making its way up the mountain. This road had to be steep, because we gained almost 7,000 feet in elevation. Soon Crystal Reservoir was just a blue ribbon below us.

Denisa was leaning out the pickup window taking pictures of the snake-like road we had just came up.

We watched the miles clip by as the temperature went down. On this day when the forecast high in Colorado Springs was in the 80s, we enjoyed much cooler temperatures at much higher elevations. This road was not for the faint-hearted. At times it looked like we were driving right off the mountain into the clouds, with no guard rails to stop us.

We grabbed our jackets when we got out of the pickup at the top of Pikes Peak. Three years ago, a new visitor center was built here. We'd read that the cafe on the top of the mountain had to develop a unique recipe to make their home-made donuts rise at such high elevation. These are the only donuts made at an elevation of over 14,000 feet.

Of course, we had to try them for ourselves. We were eating donuts with a mountain-top view.

There are multiple ways to get to the top of Pikes Peak. We drove our vehicle up the road, but a shuttle is also available for people that don't want to drive the narrow mountain roads. We found interesting road signs at each hair-pin turn instructing drivers to stop if the light was flashing. We're assuming that the school buses that they use as shuttles  are too long to meet anyone on those turns, so on-coming vehicles are required to stop.

Another way to get to the top is riding a bicycle up that steep road. We saw about a dozen riders doing that this morning, and we can't even imagine how hard that would be. 

Another possibility is hiring a company that will transport you to the top, and then provide a bicycle (with good brakes hopefully) for you to ride all the way down.

Another way to get to the top is to hike the 13-mile Barre Trail to the top. That hike has almost 7,000 feet in elevation gain. In all of our hiking we have never done a hike with that much gain. 

But the more usual mode of transportation is the Pikes Peak Cog Railroad. We saw that two trains were at the top station when we were there.

We checked out the cog system that brings those trains to the top, and then gets them safely back down this steep incline.

Riders don't get much time at the top, since they have to ride the same cog railroad back down the mountain.

Since we had only been in Colorado Springs for two nights, we certainly weren't acclimatized to the thin air in the mountains--especially the tiny amount of oxygen in the air at 14,000 feet. We read that staying hydrated was important, so we picked up two big gulp drinks at 7-Eleven that morning. We also purposefully took deep breaths as we moved about the top of the mountain. We noticed everyone was moving in slow-motion to conserve their energy.

We checked out the views from the top. Mark was climbing out to a rocky outcrop, and Denisa intended to take his picture. 

But then she spotted a group of big horn sheep that had just shown up on Pikes Peak. She suddenly lost all interest in taking pictures of Mark.

She was clicking pictures of the big horn male . . .

as he was looking over his flock and his mountainous kingdom.

The shaggy young sheep were still hanging on to their winter coats.

While Denisa was stumbling over these rocks and struggling to breathe at this altitude, these nimble big horn sheep were making it look easy.

They had an audience until they decided it was time to leave the top of the mountain. The youngest member of the flock called out, because he didn't want to be left behind.

And just like that, the big guy led them down the mountain. Denisa snapped one last picture to show that their fur is the same color as the rocks at the top of Pike's Peak, making them very hard to see from a distance.

No trip to the top can be official without taking a picture beside the summit sign. Even in July, there were still remnants of snow at the summit.

We took one last picture of the views from the top, with Colorado Springs stretched out far below.

After walking the entire summit loop surrounding the visitor center, eating the donuts, and checking out the indoor displays, it was time to head back down that steep road. But this time we were stopping at all those places recommended on the brochure we got at the entrance station.  

The first stop, at mile marker 16.5, was the "bottomless pit." It featured a grand rock wall that seemed to drop down forever in front of us.

It's funny how Denisa got distracted by the flowers in front of the pit.

Two girls were excited about the pikas at this location, and they were laying out a path of cheezits to entice them to come out of their holes. We hated to tell them that these were actually marmots, who seem to be quite social animals.

They will pose for pictures even without coaxing them with junk food that is very bad for them.

The next recommended stop was at mile post 16--"Devil's Playground." Does it seem like there are some sinister undertones to the naming of these Pikes Peak stops?

This stop did provide large piles of boulders for mountain goats to climb on. The only mountain goat in our group was Mark.

This stop almost seemed commercialized, with warning signs and crowds of people. This was also a stop on the shuttle bus route, and the parking lot was full since it was a recommended stop on the park brochure. It was hard to take a picture without the crowds in it. 

We had to climb to the very top, furthest point from the parking lot, to get this picture of Denisa without the crowds.

From where she was standing, we could see the road we would travel down the mountain. It was zig-zagging its way down Pikes Peak, filled with lots of cars on this adventure. This road has been around since 1915, but wasn't so nicely paved all the way to the top until 2011.

The next stop wasn't on the brochure, but we had to find a place to pull off and stand by one of the walls of snow still left along the road.

It's surprisingly muddy and slippery beside that snow, and Denisa almost bit the snowy dirt walking beside it.

From the next stop we could see more of the road ahead, as well as Crystal Reservoir far below.

But our favorite stop on the way down off Pikes Peak wasn't on the brochure, and didn't have a sinister name.

It was just an un-named pull-out on the road, with big piles of boulders that looked inviting to someone like Mark.

When he climbed around that first big pile of rocks, he came back to get Denisa. Because on the other side was a natural garden of wildflowers. Some of them, we had never seen before.

So while Mark climbed on rocks, Denisa took pictures of wildflowers.

Denisa had to stop long enough to take pictures of Mark, perching precariously on rocks . . .

or sitting triumphantly on top of another stack he had summited. There were a dozen of these big piles of boulders, just waiting to be climbed. And the best part was that there were no lines of people or crowded parking lots. It was just the two of us . . .

and a herd of marmots that couldn't wait to pose for Denisa.

When you can have marmots and wildflowers in the same picture, you have been blessed.

Mark did take some pictures of Denisa in this rocky playground. But you will notice that in all of her pictures, both feet are firmly on the ground.

That is the opposite of Mark, whose feet were never on the ground.

Unless of course, he was laying on the ground with his face poking through a hole in a rock.

We had all this fun, just wandering God's wonders all by ourselves--without the throngs of summer crowds that were also enjoying the cooler weather of Colorado. We were at that stop for an hour, and we could have stayed longer. But the clouds were building, and we wanted to get off the mountain before the weather got nasty. 

The ranger's recommendation to get to the top as early as possible had been good advice. So we drove right by many of the stops recommended on the brochure on the way down. We drove right by the crowds stopped at Cove Creek and Glen Cove. We ate our picnic lunch at the Halfway Picnic Grounds while it was sprinkling rain on us. We did stop at the mandatory brake check, where they checked the temperature of each vehicle's brakes before they were allowed to proceed further down this very steep road.

By the time we got down to Crystal Reservoir to kayak, the wind was whipping up waves and they were making boaters get off the lake. It started raining in earnest, so our planned boating activity got cancelled. But we loved our views today, and had a great day driving to the top of one of God's taller wonders.