Coming off a weekend well spent, visiting fellow Zoomies who are active duty at the US Air Force Academy. Played 18 holes at the Eisenhower Golf Course, easily one of the most beautiful golf courses in the US.
Fun as that was, the highlight of the trip was our journey thousands of feet into the sky, to the summit of Pike’s Peak.
As you can see, the view ain’t half bad….
To give you an idea of how high up PP is, after nearly an hour of driving, we hit the treeline….where the altitude is such that trees can no longer grow. Then we drove another 4,000 feet up.
At 14,000 feet, it’s hard to breath. Oxygen is incredibly thin, so you run out of breath rather easily.
And running out of breath is exactly what I did, when we had to evacuate the Summit…..
You can see storm clouds rolling in, below us, such was our altitude. Clouds moved so fast, we didn’t notice them until they were almost right on top of us.
The clouds brought copious (and painful, ouch) amounts of hail on the summit. So we hightailed it to the car. On the way down, you can see how thin the distance is between the road and the storm clouds.
After about 10 minutes of driving down from the summit, it was looking like an August blizzard…
Dangerous, yes. One of the better tourist spots I’ve hit in the CONUS? You betcha!
The high point at Rocky Mountain National Park is even better. Even though you’re only at 12,000+ feet, you are in the middle (rather than at the edge) of the Rockies, and really feel close to heaven. I’ve also climbed a couple of 13ers in Colorado (the Rio Grande Pyramid and Red Cloud Mountain), and nothing can compare to that feeling of being on top of the world. Thanks for sharing the pics.
Always take the cog railroad to the top of Pikes Peak – much more enjoyable. If you want another crazy drive – try driving to the top of Mt. Evans (14,264ft but you walk the last couple of hundred ft). Its a narrow paved road with not only constant sharp drop offs and lots of cars but hundreds of bicyclists who you have to get around on the way up and who threaten to run into your bumper on the way down.
It doesn’ suck, does it?
And next time you’re in town, the drinks are on me.
The Pikes Peak Hillclimb has run every year since 1916, usually on July 4th. In 1916, the winning time was about 21 minutes. Currently, the record is 10 minutes 4 seconds by a Toyota Celica, averaging an amazing 75 mph.
When I saw the first picture, my first thought was lightning.
To hell with the hillclimb, the Pikes Peak Marathon is much more impressive. Start in Manitou, run to the top, turn around and run back down. The current record is just over 3 hours 16 minutes.
We had that secret at the USAF Academy, was stationed there in the first half of the 70s, the high altitude and thin air took a bit of time to allow proper body functioning, but after a few weeks the young bodies acclimate.
When we’d fly or drive down to sea level, there was all this oxygen in the air that lengthened endurance among other things.
On a different front, I hear they are actually backing down the presence in the “hole in the wall” of NORAD up there. Just hope they don’t give the cave away, we may need it again.
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I lived in Colorado Springs for seven years, and worked on the Air Force Academy for five. Beautiful. Funny, though, I never went to the top of Pikes Peak.
One year I was training for the Pikes Peak Ascent (a half marathon where you run up but not down the day before the round trip for the lunatics) but an injury hit.
The Garden of the Gods 10 mile was tough enough…
Eisenhower Golf Course
The Links course is one of the best and golfers worldwide respect it for its testing, well-bun