The Scenic Ride Up To Pikes Peak
Cog Railway Takes Passengers 14,115 Feet During An Hour And A Half Trip Of Grazing Deer, Continental Divide Views & Cascading Streams
There are only three ways to get to the top of Pikes Peak, known as the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. It's either a 14,115 foot trip by foot, car or cog train. And once most people find out there are no rails on the winding road up to the top, it's no surprise that Pikes Peak Cog Railway is almost always booked a few weeks out.
Known as one of the 56 Fourteeners, a name reserved for Colorado mountains that are over 14,000 feet, Pikes Peak is the only one that is front of a mountain range.
“When you get up to the top,” said Traffic Manager Whitney Hedgepeth, “because it's so tall, you can have a clear view. You can stand up and see five states. You can see the Continental Divide. It's pretty phenomenal.”
While the spectacular view atop of Pikes Peak is one in a million, the hour and a half long trip up the mountain is also nothing to scoff at. The first third of the trip runs along Ruxton Creek in Englemann Canyon, a steep track that follows a “cascading stream through dense stands of Englemann spruce, Colorado blue spruce and Ponderosa pine trees.” There are also a significant amount of boulders, which conductors like to point out.
Then the train slowly chugs into Deer Park, where passengers often catch glimpses of deer grazing. Then it's up Four Mile Siding, where the 292 passengers first catch a glimpse of Pikes Peak.
The halfway point of the journey passes another siding, known as Mountain View. Then the grade steepens again on “The Big Hill.” Many of the trees in this area are bristlecone pine, some of the oldest on earth. In fact, it's estimated that some of the trees along the railway are over 2,000 years old.
According to Pikes Peak Cog Railway's official website, the view becomes “more expansive,” once they climb above the timberline, where it's too dry for trees to grow. It's here that many passengers “frequently see yellow-bellied marmots and Bighorn sheep. Playful creatures, the marmots like to sun themselves on rocks in the summer... They are noted for their piercing whistle. Pikes Peak is also home to one of the largest herd of Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep in Colorado.”
The last three miles of the scenic trip are all above timberline. To the east, railway riders can see the stretch of the Great Plains out beyond the border of Colorado and Kansas. To the south, the Sangre de Cristo Range. On top of Pikes Peak, visitors can see the skyscrapers of downtown Denver.
Hedgepeth used to be a conductor on the tour, going up the mountain twice a day. And it never got old to her because there was always something different happening. In fact, one time a baby deer was born right in front of the train on the tracks. She recalled: “We had to stop and let nature take its course before moving on!”
The cog railway has been on Pikes Peak for 126 years, a tourist attraction through and through. Getting up to the top of Pikes Peak by hiking or carriage ride took up to three days, so the cog railway was a welcomed source of adventure and income to Manitou Springs, a very small town below.
The railroad took 18 months to complete, spread out over three years because of the weather. After its completion, the railway was used for a large variety of reasons, which the conductors will discuss during the trip up to the top of the mountain.
“One of my favorite stories is about an army weather station base that was at the top of the mountain in the early 1900s,” Hedgepeth said. “One of the people up there was John O'Keefe. At the time the only way to communicate was through telegram. And he would send random telegrams down that were just pranks. He would say, 'Pikes Peak is erupting.' He even once said his daughter was eaten by giant rats at the top of the mountain and he had a funeral for her. But he didn't even have a daughter.”
Hedgepeth started working at Pikes Peak in 2008, when she needed a summer job. She continued to work as a conductor, excited about her work because of the opportunity to help improve people's vacations.
“For me, it's helping people have fun on their vacation,” she explained. “It's nice to see their faces once they get up there and experience it.”
At the top of the mountain, guests are allowed up to 40 minutes (“Most people begin to feel the effects of high altitude after about 30 minutes,” warns the website). There's hiking trails to explore, an abundance of sites to see and even the Summit House, if people want to grab a bite to eat.
Then it's back down the mountain, another one and a half hours in some of the most scenic wildlife displays in Colorado. The trees. The wildflowers. The active wildlife. It's what people expect when they travel into the mountains, and there's no better way to experience the majesty of Pikes Peak than slowly traveling up and down the Cog Railway.
Olivia Richman
A graduate of East Connecticut State University in Journalism, Olivia has written for Stonebridge Press & Antiques Marketplace among others. She enjoys writing, running and video games.
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