Royal Gorge 7/19/2007

7/19/2007
Today we went back to the Royal Gorge but this time we went on top.

As you can see you can drive across the bridge or you can walk. Notice the bridge surface is wood planking. We walked about half way across then took the easy way, we rode the trolley over and back. We came in on the east side of the bridge. There are things to do on both sides of the bridge. On the east side the main souvenir stand is located there along with the incline, cable car and an ice cream stand. On the west side there is a theater, restaurant, small souvenir shop, a petting zoo, a small regular zoo and a stage coach ride. We saw the movie about the gorge, the bridge and the railroad at the theater.

A view of the bridge from an overlook out side the park.

A view looking down at the gorge from the bridge. The bridge is 1,023 feet above the river. Notice the rafters on the Arkansas River. Did you see all five rafts. This is the busiest rafting river I have ever seen. Also, notice the people in the open car on the train. That's where I was two days ago when I took the pictures of the gorge.

There is quit a bit of traffic on the bridge, mostly foot traffic. Notice the bugle in the bridge. It does move slightly with the wind. You can only drive cars across it, no RVs but first you have to buy a ticket into the park for each person in the car.

These are the main cables that support the bridge.

I rode the incline down to the bottom of the gorge. This is a view from the bottom looking up the incline. Remember it is a 1000 feet from the top to the bottom. It is the steepest incline in the world at 45 degrees. Get your pencil out and figure out how far the ride is. I'll tell you it takes about five and a half minutes up or down. The distance is a little over 1500 feet. Did you get it?

This is the view of the hanging bridge. The gorge is only 40 feet wide here and the bridge is suspended over the river. This is a little better view of the bridge than the other day when the train was on it.

View of the cable car crossing the gorge. Sorry, I didn't have enough guts to ride it. There was another ride I didn't have the guts to ride and that was the one where they harness you into a large swing and swing you out over the gorge, not me brother. I already had one heart attack, that's enough. :-)

This picture is from their zoo, it is a white buffalo calf. The following was copied from this web site. http://www.merceronline.com/Native/native05.htm
"The Sioux are a warrior tribe, and one of their proverbs says, "Woman shall not walk before man. " Yet White Buffalo Woman is the dominant figure of their most important legend. The medicine man Crow Dog explains, "This holy woman brought the sacred buffalo calf pipe to the Sioux. There could be no Indians without it. Before she came, people didn't know how to live. They knew nothing. The Buffalo Woman put her sacred mind into their minds. " At the ritual of the sun dance one woman, usually a mature and universally respected member of the tribe, is given the honor of representing Buffalo Woman.
Though she first appeared to the Sioux in human form, White Buffalo Woman was also a buffalo­the Indians' brother, who gave its flesh so that the people might live. Albino buffalo were sacred to all Plains tribes; a white buffalo hide was a sacred talisman, a possession beyond price. "

There is one error in the above statement. These white buffalo are not albinos. They do not have pink eyes and are not pure white.

Thought you might like to see what holds the main cables up. After we left the park we took a loop drive around Pikes Peak. We drove about 50 miles on route 50 to Salida. Route 50 runs along the Arkansas River. There were a lot of picnic areas along the route. I never saw so many rafters. Every mile or two we would see two or three more rafts floating down the river. From route 50 we took 285 north to 24 and back to Colorado Springs and the campground. It was about a two hundred mile loop. On the way back at the top of the mountain pass on route 24 we ran into the worst hail storm I have ever been in. Fortunately the hail wasn't much bigger than a pee but it came down so fast that the road and fields were covered white in a minute. Our car slide slightly a couple of times. Thankfully we drove out of it in a few miles as we drove down the mountain. We still hit a couple of heavy down pours where I had to pull off the road a minute or two until it let up. We did make it home fine and I was glad to see the car didn't have any dents in it.

Royal Gorge 7/17/2007

7/17/2007
Today's adventure was a train ride through the Royal Gorge. The picture below is a replica of a Giant Hercules Beetle of the West Indies. It is located at the turn off to the campground and museum. The Mays family collected over 100,000 invertebrates from all over the world. Only about 8000 are shown in the museum. Mostly the largest, most beautiful and most valuable are the ones on display. http://www.maymuseum-camp-rvpark.com/natural_history.htm

The bottom mandible is missing.

This is the train we took on our ride through the Royal Gorge. The trip is 12 miles from Canon City to Parkdale and gains 420 feet. It takes about an hour and a half each way. The tracks were completed in 1879. The narrowest point in the gorge is 40 feet. To lay the tracks at that narrow a place they had to suspend the tracks over the river.

There are many rafters on the Arkansas River. Early in the spring the river at places is a class 5. I read that so far this year there have been 5 drowning on the river.

The Royal Gorge bridge is 1000 feet above the river.

More rafters on the river. As you can see at this time of year the rapids aren't too bad.

Notice the girders, that is what is holding the suspended bridge up. Quit a unique solution and it has lasted for 127 years.

There is a cable car that is suspended across the gorge which you can ride if you want to, not me. If you look closely you can see the wires. Unfortunately the cable car was not in view. There also is an incline you can ride from the top to the bottom. They claim it is the steepest incline in the world at 45 degrees. We are going back to the gorge Thursday to see it from the top. There is an amusement park of a sort around the top of the gorge and bridge. Admission is $21.00 for seniors to get in. You can then ride the cable car, the incline and you can walk across the bridge. Yes, you have to pay to walk across the bridge. There also are other rides. Tomorrow I hope to get pictures from the top of the gorge.

Pike's Peak or Bust, 7/14/2007

7/14/2007
One of the problems with this blog is that if you don't load your pictures in the right order you can't move them if you want people to be able to click on them to expand them. I missed this picture when I loaded my other pictures so as you can see it is out of order but I can't move it or you wouldn't be able to expand it. The other pictures below it are in the right order.

Peg and me at the summit. We had gone to 12,000 feet on the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park and I had no ill effects, at 14,100 feet I did. I wasn't dizzy, at least no more than usual, :-) but I was light headed and I had to rest after walking just short distances.

Today we went to Pike's Peak. It's only a few miles west of Colorado Springs in fact you can see the peak from Colorado Springs. The peak is named for Zebulon Pike who never went to the top of the mountain. He was a lieutenant in the army, his men did go to the top, so old Zeb got his name on the peak since he was the lieutenant in charge.

One of the views on the way up to Pike's Peak. This is at about 10,000 feet, but remember you are starting at 6,000 feet, the altitude of Colorado Springs.

Part of the road up to the peak. Most of the road is black topped. This is at about 12,000 feet. Remember Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park is the highest continuous road in the U.S. at a little over 12,000 feet. This one as you could see from my out of order picture above goes to 14,100 feet, but it is not continuous, you must come back down the way you go up. One of the rules of the road is that the cars going up have the right-of-way and you should see how we all hug that middle line even though the road is fairly wide.

For those who don't want to drive up, there is this option, the cog railroad. We were going to come up this way until we found out it cost $32.00 a person. It still cost $10.00 a person to drive up but I'm glad we drove up. I think we got to see more and of course we could stop at the pull offs to take pictures and see the views. Many people choose to come up on the train because when we were there they announced that the train was arriving with 300 people on board and would the people who walked up please move their back packs from the entrance. I can't even imagine walking up, not even in my younger days.

View of Colorado Springs from the top. Note the smog, it is not haze. There is a large area for parking at the top but when we got there it was hard to find a parking space there was so many people already there and I mean hundreds. They are making a killing at $10.00 a person. The sign at the gate says this is not a National Park telling you, you can't use your Golden Age Pass. No, but it is a National Forest, Pike National Forest, I wounder who is getting the money?

I took this picture to emphasize the smog. We were actually above the smog even though this picture looks like we weren't. The whole valley in both directions, north and south was covered with this smog. Notice from the pictures at a lower elevation that you can't tell that, that is what we are living in.

A plaque of the song, America the Beautiful. I have always felt that this should be our national anthem. I don't like the Star Spangles Banner as our national anthem because it is a war song and we are suppose to be a peace loving nation. However, in this day and age I'm not sure our politicians know that.

An interesting sign about Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.

Actually because of the smog and the way it ruins the view the most interesting part of the drive is the road getting there and back. It is a good road and as I said mostly black top but the part that isn't is a good wide dirt road and fairly smooth. The drive down is interesting. They tell you to put your car in it's lowest gear or you will over heat your brakes. Being from the mountains of Pennsylvania I was well aware of what happens if your brakes over heat, they don't work. The road has more U-curves in it than a snake. You can't go over 10 miles an hour around them. I kept my car in 1st gear almost all of the way down. If I tried to put it in second I had to use my brakes so I kept it in first even though it seemed like I was crawling and the motor was racing. I pulled over many times to let cars go by that were in more of a hurry than I was. About half way down there is a check point were they stop you and check how hot your brakes are. If they are too hot they tell you to pull over into the parking lot and let them cool off. The car in front of me was told to pull over. When he checked mine he said 202 degrees, good job go on. My brakes had to be cool because I hadn't used them. Believe me in 1st gear you don't have to use your brakes even on a steep slope except when you go around a U-curve where you can see your tail lights. :-) Even after you get out of the park it is still a long way down to the 6,000 feet level of Colorado Springs. I still ran into signs saying 10% slope use lower gear.

It was a great trip, we really enjoyed it and it wasn't nearly as scary as Peg was afraid it would be. Here is a link to the Mt. Evans sight http://www.mountevans.com/. It is an interesting story about the competion between Denver and Colorado Springs for the tourist and about the trips to the top of high mountain peaks.