The Peak

October 18, 2021

No good reason exists, except marketing, for calling Pikes Peak “America’s Mountain.” It’s on all the brochures and on the marquee over the toll gate. Someone in the city government of Colorado Springs, Colo., thought of that. Pikes Peak is operated by the city, it’s a national landmark, not a national park. Something like 500,000 people visit each year. It’s a magic place.

The Peak, 14,115 feet in elevation, isn’t Colorado’s highest, that’s Mount Elbert at 14,440 in the Swatch Range near the center of the state. Pikes Peak is only 31st of Colorado’s 58 “fourteeners,” mountains above 14,000 feet, the most of any state; the elevations of many of them differ by only a few feet. But the Peak has a story: the first American to see it was Army officer and explorer Zebulon Pike in 1806. Pike vowed to climb the mountain but never did and died in the war of 1812. For a while it was called “James Peak” after Edwin James, who ascended to the summit in 1820. At some point it was renamed Pike’s Peak to honor Pike, then  Pikes Peak in 1890. One historical tidbit must be cited: Katherine Lee Bates wrote “America the Beautiful” in 1895 after taking in the view from the Peak.

The snow-capped summit loomed in swirling clouds perhaps twelve miles due west of the city. We took the winding 19-mile highway, Steve at the wheel of his longbed pickup. The road begins at the toll booth in Cascade, the toll-taker reminds drivers to use first gear on the descent. The route, rising gradually, snakes through evergreen forest speckled with yellow aspen and burnt-red scrub oak that show the parching common in the semi-arid climate. The pitch of the road grows steeper beyond trout-rich Crystal Creek Reservoir. An old inn called Glen Cove at mile 13 has been turned into a souvenir shop. On the descent side near the inn cars line up at a booth to have their brakes checked. An attendant kneels at the left front wheel and takes the brake temperature, some vehicles’ brakes are red-hot from the ride down.

As the road ascends, the Colorado landscape drops away. I sat in the front passenger’s seat and stared. Looking left, then right, the view is of the sharp tops of the evergreens—then nothing. We inched along at under 20 mph, eyes on the car ahead, which followed closely the vehicle ahead of it. Beyond mile 13 the forest dribbles away to thin underbrush. The road turns into a series of sharp switchbacks (called “The Switchbacks”). The switchbacks, hacked out of the mountain, aren’t fitted with guardrails, though some of the turns have a short token rail. Looking forward through the windshield—if you can—the view is of sky ahead, red earth below.

Sandy and our daughter Kathleen, in the backseat, were silent. I said nothing, focused on the thin ribbon of road ahead and sky beyond, the blue deeper as we climbed. We now were far above the treeline, the landscape was nothing but that rough red Colorado sandstone, broken into massive boulders. I inhaled more deeply as we rounded the turns. A few cars had pulled to the side, people climbed over the massive outcroppings. The road snaked higher above us, cars crawled along, the summit still not in sight.

I resisted the urge to yell “slow down,” as Steve maneuvered up the switchbacks. To the left was the abyss. As we rounded each curve the drop was off to the right.  Then the left. And so on. Then we were at the summit.

A flashing sign advises visitors to limit time at the summit to 30 minutes. We stepped out and gasped in the thin atmosphere, a dry 18F. Mist swirled about, we stood teetering on packed ice. We stepped toward the edge of the observation platform, which was coated with stamped-down snow. I looked out at the hazy horizon, 125 miles distant, then backed away. A few chilled folks posed for photos, their smiles tight, tense, and brief. Just below the platform the bright-red four-car Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway, the alternative to driving, stood waiting to depart. The round-trip ticket: $59.50, $49.50 for kids under 13.  

We panted our way along the railing. The air at the summit contains slightly more than half the oxygen level as at sea level. Within moments of getting out of the car I felt lightheaded, my heart thumping. We took some quick pictures then headed for the huge visitor’s center, which overlooks the precipice.

Looking around, the visitor, acclimating to the cold, is stunned by the place: the windswept bleakness, the vast stretches of sandstone rock, and only rock—massive fields of car-size to house-size boulders. The closest tree or shrub is thousands of feet below, far beyond the eerie, towering shards of sandstone jutting from the surface, surrounded by more rock.

Along with dozens of others we were being treated to a glimpse of nature in its raw, forbidding intensity. Skilled engineers and laborers have attempted over years to tame this massive 14,000-foot-high rock as a tourist attraction, with a train station, souvenir shop, and café. Their efforts allowed us to walk this frigid, hostile moonscape nearly three miles above civilization and to witness its spectacular, elegant hardness.

In the visitor’s center shop I asked the cashier how the employees get to work each day. A company bus picks them up for the 90-minute one-way trip, then takes them home again. “When the weather’s bad, we just don’t come,” he said.

We looked out into the void once more, then piled into the truck and rubbed our hands together. The temperature had risen to 21F. We let out our breath, Steve delicately navigated us towards the descent, crawling around the switchbacks. We watched the upbound traffic crawl forward.

The Colorado people work to keep the mountain and the highway safe, with reasonable precautions, and tourist-friendly for those who want a tee-shirt or jacket with a Pikes Peak patch, a coffee mug, or some postcards. But the managers, whoever they are, can’t temper the impact of this unsettling place, the sheer drops, howling winds, ghostly mists, and amazing vistas.  What remains of stepping across this frigid piece of rock, and overwhelms, is the awesome nature of the Peak, a terrifying, majestic monument to God’s creative power.