Connor Family Travels: Garden of the Gods

We got up early today to beat the crowds at Garden of the Gods. This is a free park donated to the city of Colorado Springs and it is beautiful. We briefly visited this park 3 years ago, but today we found out that we did not experience it fully last time.

We started off at Balanced Rock. This is an iconic rock formation in Garden of the Gods.

Caleb holding up Balanced Rock

Mom and Dad at Balanced Rock

Next up was a family hike to the Siamese Twins rock formation.

The hike was a bit steeper and rockier than we expected, but the views of Pikes Peak were breathtaking.

We could even see the Summit House at the top of Pikes Peak. We were just there!

We made it to the Siamese Twins! It is an impressive rock formation!

Family pic in front of the Siamese Twins

View of Pikes Peak through Siamese Twins window

By the time we finished up our trail (after a wrong turn and some backtracking 😬), the park was filling up. We drove to the big parking lot with plans to walk the Central Garden path. We could only find parking for one car and after walking a short distance in the very hot sun, we decided to not “take a drive to Midland” and we headed for the air conditioned Trading Post instead.

Caleb scored this cool hat and we all got some lunch.

The Connors and Ryan still had some hiking left in us so we set out for the Ridge Trail. The park map describes this 1/2 mile hike as giving you”the feeling of being up among the rocks”. I would say that is a very accurate description. We really enjoyed this hike.

Caleb’s objective today was to climb rocks. “Why walk when you can leap” seemed to be his motto. His mother might disagree.

We finished up our walk among the rocks and headed back to the house. Rodney and I had a 3:30 reservation to walk up the Manitou Incline. Mid-afternoon on an unusually hot day might not be the ideal time to climb 2,768 steps, but that was the only time slot we could get. The reservation system was put in place to limit the crowds at the Incline because of COVID.

Manitou Incline

The Manitou Incline is the remains of a narrow gauge cog railway that ascended the mountain towards Pikes Peak and whose track was washed away in a mudslide in 1990. The Incline gains 2,011 ft in elevation in just .88 miles, with an average grade of 45% and as steep as 68% in some places. When Morgan asked why we were going to do such a crazy thing, I replied “to say that we did”. She replied with an understanding nod.

We parked in Manitou Springs and took the shuttle to the base of the Incline, which begins across the street from the Cog Railway station. Everyone on the shuttle was heading either to the Incline or the railway station and it was easy to identify who was going where.

The Incline from the bottom

Ready to ascend. Let’s do this!

Rodney handled the aerobic component of this hike much better than me. I was very winded and needed more breaks.

Taking a break to catch my breath

The views on the way up were beautiful. We could see the town of Manitou Springs and Garden of the Gods.

About halfway up, it started raining lightly. It felt great! Then we heard distant thunder and Rodney began rushing me to the top. His fear of being struck by lightning was killing me!

Getting close!

Made it step 2000!

Just before we reached the top, the rain stopped and so did the thunder. After an hour of climbing, we made it to the top.

The Incline from the top

So we made it up, but now we had to get back down. It is discouraged to walk down the Incline, although we did see several people doing it. Instead, we walked down the final 4 miles of the Barr Trail. Had we gone 11 miles in the other direction, we would have arrived at the top of Pikes Peak.

We wanted to run down the trail of course, but this sign advised us not to so we took a leisurely walk instead. 😉

We enjoyed more beautiful views from the trail.

We even saw the Cog Railway car coming down the mountain from Pikes Peak. On our train ride yesterday, the conductor had pointed out this trail as we passed. We waved to anyone who could see us and then started walking up as if we were hiking to the top. Ha!

After 5 miles of hiking, we finally reached the bottom.

We didn’t see the shuttle waiting so we decided to just walk the 1.3 miles back to our car. What’s one more mile after that, right? And least it was downhill.

When we got back into town, I went in search for a t-shirt to commemorate the event. I personally think they should be handing these out at the top, but they weren’t so I bought my own.

We decided we had earned a good meal so we went in search of a restaurant. We found one that served an Incline Burger, but their kitchen had just closed. It would have been perfect! We instead got a Hawaiian burger. I love Hawaiian burgers! Rodney does not believe that pineapple belongs on burgers or pizza, but he ordered this to split with me because he knew I’d love it. What a guy!

While we were up to our shenanigans at the Incline, the rest of the group decided not to be outdone and headed to Seven Falls, a series of 7 cascading waterfalls in a 1,250 ft box canyon.