Day 7. A Visit to Pike's Peak

Tues, June 13, 2006. Manitou Springs and the trip up Pike's Peak.

We continue to explore Manitou Springs. Gerald & Harold go to the arcade to play games old and new, while Lynne takes a walking tour around town and windowshops.

In the early afternoon we go for a ride on the Pike's Peak Cog Railway, which takes you gradually up on a zipper-like track to the summit which is 14,410 feet above sea level. Going up this way is great, because you get a view of the different eco-zones from the base to the peak, the great slabs of granite of various colors and angular formations, & the stands of willowy aspens with leaves flickering in the sunlight. I fell in love with the Rocky Mountain ponderosa pine with a stepped branch formation that makes it look like a giant bonsai tree. The bark turns a beautiful reddish cinnamon color as they get old, and can live for 100's of years. Between 8 and 11,000 feet, is the tree-line above which the growth of trees cannot be sustained.

At the higher elevations, the landscape is strewn with naked rock slides. Near the peak we saw chubby "yellow-bellied marmots," here and there amongst the rocks. The landscape is so sparse that I wondered how they survive, but it turns out they eat prairie grass, insects and such. We also saw a group of big horn sheep lazily sunning themselves.

We had a nice clear day, and it momentarily sprinkled snow when we were at the top. We were all slightly dizzy by then, but had been told to drink plenty of water on the way up to help with your equilibrium. The view at the top stretches onward forever. Buying tickets in advance helped because we had front row seats next to the engineer and the tour guide told jokes almost as bad as mine. Although you don't have to do much but sit there, we were all tired from the ride up and back down the mountain. Later that night we went back to the arcade for more games. We played ski-ball and other games which give you prize tickets and Gerald ended up getting a miniature samurai sword with a sheath. (He wouldn't take my suggestion and get the tire pressure gauge even though he had enough tickets;->) We also played pool. We also swam in the pool a bit.