Another famous place we visited was the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Remember how the other day I mentioned you could get to the top of Pikes Peak either by hiking, by car, or by train? Well the Cog Railroad it the train method!
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| See me on the train? This is one of their older ones! |
The cog train is different than what I have seen in Indiana or anywhere else for that matter. It does not operate on standard rails. It uses "gears" to climb the mountain. So whereas normal trains can only climb very small hills (no more than 6% incline), the cog train can climb at inclines that are 4 times that steep! This is helpful as it is a long way up to the top of Pikes Peak. They even modified one of the train engines and added a snow plow! I find that funny that a train plows snow up a mountain... but it works very well.
On the way back from the Cog Railway, we stopped at the Iron Springs Chateau.
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| There I am by the scary looking guy! He hosts the show. |
At the chateau, you have dinner (chicken and such), then they put on an "old time comedy show" or melodrama. The actors tell a story while singing and dancing and then at the end, everybody joins in a sing-a-long. Uncle Rob said he took his parents to see this a few years ago. He said he wasn't excited about the show, but he thought his Dad liked it.
The last thing we saw on our tour of Manitou Springs was the Miramont Castle. Miramont means "look at the mountain". Well, since everything in this area seems based around Pikes Peak, that sure makes sense. I didn't know that they had castles in Colorado though.
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| I stayed my distance from the ghosts! |
It didn't look like the castles I had seen in my books, but they say that castles can look many different ways and apparently this is what one in Manitou looks like. It was built in 1895. Again, over 100 years ago.. I am feeling very young in this town for sure. Oh, and did I mention they tell me it is haunted with ghosts! I am not sure I believe that, but you never know....
OK, one last thing that they showed me in Manitou Springs - "the incline". You can see a cut-out on the side of the mountain from most locations within Colorado Springs.
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| That's the incline over my shoulder |
The history of the incline is that in 1907 (yes, again over 100 years ago! - I told you Manitou Springs was historic) the same people that operated the Cog Railway (mentioned above) put in a tram for work purposes, but then turned it into a tourist attraction by taking people up in box cars. A rock slide eventually destroyed the tracks and the entire tram was taken out. But that is not the cool part. Now, it is a local activity that people will hike, run, and climb up this incline. It gains 2000 feet of elevation (there is that word again!) in a little over 3/4 of a mile. At times it has a 50 degree incline. That is 2 times steeper than the Cog Railway can climb!
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| This is a guy climbing up - notice I am NOT in this pic! |
It is hard to picture how steep this climb is, but it did not look climbable to me! They say that some locals climb it every day just for fun and that there is a 70 year old man that runs (yes runs) it every week! That sure does not seem fun to me!
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