The Scenic Route: 4000 miles and 13 miles to Pikes Peak.

Near the Pike's Peak Summit

I recently wrote about cancelled plans to climb Pikes Peak in my prior post, called Access Denied. I am happy to report that we did make it up to our first Colorado fourteener, but we ended up taking the scenic route. The trip was originally planned to take place en route to a prevention conference in St. Louis. We decided to take another approch.

This resulted in a road trip circumnavigating the Midwest, from the continental divide to the Mississippi River and back again. We followed the historic route 66 through New Mexico, stopping in the Texas panhandle on night one, where we had waffles in the shape of the state of Texas for breakfast.

Fireflies appear as little green streaks in this 30 second twilight exposure in the Ozarks taken from back deck of our cabin near the Buffalo River

View from the Buffalo River Trail, the Ozarks

We followed traveled through Arkansas and stayed in a cabin in the Ozarks, near the wild and scenic Buffalo River, which we were able to hike along. The fire flies put on a pretty amazing show for us. 

There was mostly farms and forest. All of it green, green, green. 

The mighty Mississippi River

taken from the window of  our room in St Louis

We then went to St Louis, and had a room with a pretty fantastic view. I caught largemouth bass and visited one of the world’s best (and totally free) zoos, featuring a snow leopard and a 1200 lb polar bear, among a number of other pretty amazing animals. A freaking snow leopard. Then, we followed the Missouri river up into Iowa, with a short stop in Omaha, Nebraska for dinner.

Badlands National Park

Bentonite Hills, Badlands National Park

Then, we travelled through the plains of South Dakota. We made a detour to Badlands National Park, where bizarre bentonite formations emerge from the otherwise endless green rolling prairie of South Dakota. We observed several bighorn there. We then visited the largest granite sculpture I know of: Mt Rushmore. In the monument, we had an up close and personal encounter with a wild mountain goat. We then made our way to an overnight backpack in the Black Hills Wilderness, nearby. The following day, we hiked up Black Elk Peak, the highest peak in South Dakota, before returning to our car.

Mountain Goat, South Dakota

View west from camp, Black Elk Ridge, Black Hills, South Dakota. Black Elk Peak, to the right, is the highest point in the Black Hills Range and South Dakota. 

Sunset view, Black Elk Ridge. the square formation on the left is the back side of Mt Rushmore

View East from Black Elk Peak; Endless prairie in the distance. Next highest peak directly east of here: the Pyrenees Mountains in France

We then drove west to Cheyenne Wyoming, then turned south across the plains of western Colorado. Hundreds of pronghorns fed through endless green prairie with ever expanding Colorado Rockies boiling in the distance with afternoon thunderstorms, still snowcapped from a good winter.

Finally, we made it to Colorado Springs, the staging point for the 13 mile 7800 foot each way hike from Manitou Springs to the Pikes Peak summit.

Climbing Pikes Peak, first light and lights from Colorado Springs

About four miles in and the first view of Pikes Peak, diminutively revealed in the distance

Pikes Peak Ascent, at the timberline around 10,500 feet. 

We started the hike up to the top of Pikes Peak via the Barr Trail about an hour before sunrise with headlamps, with a goal to be up and on our way down before afternoon thunderstorms. We got hosed by the local small town politics and wound up paying $22 to park for one day at the public trailhead ('Merica!). It was a long haul, but a nicely graded and very well maintained trail. Above the treeline, the alpine scenery was truly amazing. The views from on top actually overlooked the entire 4000 mile circuit we had traveled if the air clarity and our visual acuity would support it.

Marmot, traversing a precipice above an 1800 foot cliff to the bottom of the cirque, shown below

Near the Summit of Pikes Peak

Three bighorn lambs scurried around the cliffs below with ease

overlooking the climb, with the switchbacks visible in the foreground, the trailhead in the distance on the left, and the great plains in the far distance. 

As a high point of the eastern face of the Rockies, Pikes Peak is the highest point from Colorado across the entire continent east, north and south of where it stands. For this reason, it has been called America’s Mountain. It seemed a perfect crescendo ending overlooking our 4000 mile trip around America. On top, we had cheeseburgers, nachos, and fountain drinks, also quite American and quite novel. A monument on top featured the lyrics from America the Beautiful, a song evidently inspired by the vista.

We then returned the way we came descending the mountain in reverse, with just a few bolts of lightning and a brief July snow flurry to remind us that we don’t belong in the alpine. There were three juvenile bighorns traversing the steep cliffs at around 13.500 feet, and there were carpets of green, yellow, and purple alpine meadows and boulders complete with marmots.