SSS - Pikes Peak or Bust!

Written by Sharlene Minshall

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 20:00

As I mentioned in an earlier column, when I was in Colorado last summer, I awakened each morning to an awesome view of Pikes Peak, named after Zebulon Pike, an early Southwest explorer. The wagon trains first sighted this magnificent mountain as they crossed the Great Plains from the East in the 1850s, and two Michigan honeymoon travelers sighted it for the first time in 1956. The pioneers were searching for new beginnings in the American West, and my husband and I were entertaining a new beginning as well. Both were successful.

As honeymooners on our first trip West, we had taken out the sedan’s back seat and installed a mattress that on occasion served for camping overnight in the car—the very beginnings of our RVing history. The first morning we awakened to cattle staring in our window! We hadn’t yet learned there were free-ranging cattle in the West.

In the mid-‘60s after graduating to two daughters fighting in the back seat of a wing-tipped Plymouth and a 9x9-foot heavy tent, we started up Pikes Peak. Excited by that rallying cry of the 1800s, “Pikes Peak or Bust,” we promptly busted. Our engine became so hot about three-fourths of the way up that my mechanic husband didn’t want to take a chance of blowing an engine and making a little history of our own. On a later trip with a truck and camper, we actually did make it to the top. Many years and tears later, I drove my solo motorhome to the top.

History records that in 1858 Julia Archibald Holmes became the first Caucasian woman to hike the peak, after she heard that Zebulon Pike had said the peak could never be climbed. Isn’t it just like a woman to debunk a statement like that? Yesss! The Ute hunted elk, bear, buffalo, bighorn sheep and mountain lions on the mountain long before the white man named it Pikes Peak.

Latest Trip
In 2008, after paying our $10 fee each (it’s $35 for a car full), friend Joyce Linnerud and I drove to the top of this steep winding road, still partially gravel and with an average grade of 7 percent. It was both nostalgic and soul-restoring after a July of Arizona heat. I didn’t see any RVers up there, but there is no reason you couldn’t drive to the top if you remember that if you go up in first or second gear to help pull you up the mountain, you’ll need to be in first or second gear to save your brakes coming down.

Although Pikes Peak isn’t Colorado’s highest mountain at 14,110-feet, you’ll be breathing in only half as much oxygen as you would get at sea level so altitude sickness (dizziness, nausea and fainting) are a definite possibility, and it isn’t recommended that you go up at all if you have heart or respiratory problems or if you have an infant under three months.

It was a hot August day minus infants when we drove up, but fortunately we had taken jackets. It is 30 degrees cooler at the top, and the weather can shift from reasonable to very cold and stormy within minutes. In fact that is one of the things that fascinates me about high mountains— you can scan the horizon, watching clouds and rainstorms making their way through the countryside below.

Now that I’ve given you all the warnings, it is a beautiful and interesting winding road through four of Colorado’s eight life zones. With every 1,000 feet you go up, it is like traveling north 600 miles.

Looking off the north side of the summit, you’ll peer down on “The Bottomless Pit.” If that isn’t dramatic enough, near the High Altitude Research Station is a great view of the Continental Divide. It is an incredible feeling to be so far above the tree line and feel like you are looking out on forever. If you are so inspired as to write a song, as did Katharine Lee Bates in 1893, she’s already done “America the Beautiful,” so you’ll have to work on something else.

Alternate Travel
There is another way to the top.

Zalmon Simmons, who founded the Simmons Bedding Company, makers of the Beautyrest mattress, in 1870 rode to the Pikes Peak summit on a two-day mule trip. He returned so determined that the trip could be made more comfortable (Do ya think?) that he ultimately provided the needed capital and in 1889 the Manitou & Pikes Peak Railway was founded and track construction began.

Since then, the world’s highest cog train, and the highest train in the United States, has taken passengers to the summit. Almost nine miles long, the round trip takes three hours and ten minutes with up to 12 trips a day in the summer and one daily winter trip. A 500 horsepower, 12-cylinder Cummins diesel-powered snowplow is required to clear the track of as much as 15 feet of snow after winter storms.

Leaving the Historic Manitou Springs Depot, the steep track follows a cascading stream through dense stands of ancient Engelmann spruce, Colorado blue spruce and ponderosa pine trees. A third of the trip is on a gentler grade with mule deer, bighorn sheep and yellow-bellied marmots watching you as you watch them. At timberline, trees are stunted for lack of moisture and the alpine tundra, grasses and wildflowers struggle to exist. Underneath the surface, permafrost keeps the ground frozen all year. The last three miles, a super view of the Great Plains of Eastern Colorado and Kansas emerge. The Sangre de Christo (Blood of Christ) Range stretches south to New Mexico. To the southwest, lies the Collegiate Range.

If you’ve driven up, it is fun to watch the cog train chugging its way up the mountain. Quick, get your food and souvenirs and use the restroom before the train unloads its many passengers for their 30- to 40-minute stop. The Cog Wheel Cafe does pretty well with 1960s vintage facilities, but there are long lines for buying box lunches to eat on the way down. “Outside” food is not allowed. The ten-minute warning horn signals departure and passengers scramble aboard. The train leaves on time and they are required to return on the same train.

Although I wouldn’t want to see how fast I could drive those curves, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb that originated in 1916 is held every year in July and is the second oldest auto race in America. Its history is fascinating and even I recognize popular racers from the Unser family among the competitors. The climb is not the only thing that is steep—to watch it carries a steep price tag. (This year’s race is on July 19; general admission starts at $40.)

Our family spent many vacations in Colorado during our kids’ growing up years. There is a lot to see and experience. God Bless.

For information on Pikes Peak, visit www.pikespeak-colorado.com/GeneralInformation.htm.

Autographed copies of RVing Alaska and Canada ($19.95 for the revised 2009 edition, $16.95 for the revised 2001 edition); Adventures with the Silver Gypsy (14.95); Full-Time RVing: How to Make It Happen ($14.95); In Pursuit of a Dream ($8) and Freedom Unlimited, the Fun and Facts of Full-timing ($9) are available through author Sharlene Minshall, Box 1040, Congress, AZ 85332-1040,www.full-time-rver.com or Amazon.com