Day 9 - Pikes Peak

Today we were headed up to Pikes Peak, which is something I have been very excited to do. You can get to Pikes Peak a few ways: driving your own car, taking a shuttle, taking the Cog Railway, or if you're a complete psychopath you can ride your bike. We considered taking the Cog Railway, but when you do that you are limited on how much time you can spend on the summit (I think you get 40 minutes). We ended up driving which was great for me, and not so great for Allyson. I absolutely love driving....any vehicle in any situation, so naturally the idea of driving up Pikes Peak was appealing. Allyson likes driving, but she doesn't like winding roads which fall off on the sides. I didn't know this until we took this trip, but this is really the most time we've had along high, winding roads with perilous drop offs.

To get to Pikes Peak you need to take the Pikes Peak Highway. This is a 19 mile road that takes you from around 7,500 feet to over 14,000 feet at the peak, 14,115 feet to be exact. As you can imagine it is quite the drive. The picture below gives you an idea for what the road is like as you constantly switchback and snake up the mountain. Parts of it near the top were just constant steep switchbacks which was probably not fun for Allyson.

When you start at the bottom you have to check-in and pay a fee to go up the highway. We had done this ahead of time so the stop at the ranger was quick after waiting in a brief line. Things were looking good until the ranger told us that young children were at risk for hypoxia as you went higher and higher up the mountain. The ranger told us that as we got above the tree line (trees stop growing at around 11,500 feet) we would need to monitor Nolan for blue lips and fingernails. Now I had been reading about Pikes Peak for a couple weeks and knew about the hypoxia risk. They actually won't let you take a child under 6 months up the mountain because of this. But since I had been planning this part I don't think Allyson was aware of the risk and when she heard that guidance from the ranger I could tell it made her uneasy. So now we were going to drive up a steep mountain, on a somewhat dangerous road, with a health risk for our son. It wasn't shaping up to be an enjoyable drive for Allyson. To make things even better, our three older kids brought up the topic of blue lips every 3-4 minutes just to keep it fresh on everyone's mind. But we made it safely and there were no blue lips.

The drive up Pikes Peak highway was really special. You drive up some moderately steep roads for about 6 miles until you get to the Crystal Creek Reservoir. There's a visitor center here which we stopped at and then took a look around. It was really nice, and to me it's always interesting to see bodies of water so high up in the mountains. It seems like any cracks or erosion in the perimeter would spell disaster at such an elevation, but apparently things are working. We took a couple pictures, including an obligatory bigfoot photo, and then headed up the rest of the mountain.

We eventually made it to the top where we were greeted to a temperature that was 30 degrees cooler than where we started in Colorado Springs, and air with only 60% of the oxygen content. The reduced oxygen content was new for everyone. When you first get out of the car you think "no big deal". But as you start moving around it takes a toll on you. Going up a small flight of stairs can leave you unexpectedly out of breath. It was something I had not experienced before. There were some great observation platforms all around the top and we were able to grab some good photos.

There was a really nice visitor center we went into that had some interesting exhibits, a gift shop, and a cafe. The cafe is known for having "amazing" donuts that are cooked with a special recipe for the high elevation. I consider myself to be a bit of a donut/pasty/sweet connoisseur, and I would label these as good, not great. The ones we got were cinnamon dusted cake donuts, which are a style I really like, but they just weren't anything that special. If I had ridden my damn bike up there to get one I would have been very disappointed!

After finishing up top we drove back down the mountain. Every one of us were left very impressed by the experience. One thing of interest I will point out is that halfway down the mountain you go through a brake checkpoint. They take the temperature of your brakes and if they are too hot you have to pull over and wait. I read about this ahead of time and learned that as your brakes heat up they become less and less effective. To avoid overheating you are encouraged to use low gears while descending the mountain, which is what we did. I was thankful to have a rental car because shifting into 2nd and sometimes 1st gear in the massive Suburban was not kind to the engine or transmission. The temperature limit for your brakes is 300 degrees, and we breezed through the checkpoint at a cool 135.

Back at our campground we ate lunch and then hit the pool. It was 85 on Saturday so it was good pool weather. All we hear about each day is the pool, the pool, the pool! So the girls were very excited to go. The pool at our campground wasn't anything special, but it was enough for the girls to have fun and it was not at all crowded. When we went to get in we realized that the water was freezing cold. It was hot outside so at first I thought it wouldn't matter, but then we began to experience some of the impacts of a "dry heat". Colorado Springs is only like 20-30% relative humidity, so when you get out of the water all moisture begins to evaporate and you get really cold, really fast. But aside from the cold temperature we all had a lot of fun.

After the pool we went back and made dinner. We were planning on going to the Garden of the Gods after dinner, but there was rain in the forecast so we instead went to a shopping area called Old Colorado City to get some souvenirs. Of course it didn't end up raining, but we still got some good souvenirs. We will plan on doing Garden of the Gods on Sunday.

All in all it was a good day. Towards the end the younger kids were wearing down from the day and weren't the best behaved. However, they were well behaved for the majority of the day. We eventually got them to sleep and were able to hang out with Caroline and Natalie outside and watch the Olympics with them, which was a lot of fun. Once they were asleep Allyson and I had some time to relax together which we used to square off in a game of Mario Party.

Miscellaneous thoughts/notes:

• We passed about a half dozen bike riders going up Pikes Peak. A couple of them were legit cyclists who looked like they just came from the Tour de France. The were going straight up this mountain at a really good pace. Climbing Pike's Peak on a bike like that is incredibly impressive. The remainder of the people on bikes were using electric bikes where they were peddling, but clearly with a motor assisting them.

• If you ever get asked which one person has driven the most economic activity throughout history I know the answer: Bigfoot. Every state we travel to has laid claim to being the home of Bigfoot, or at least a Bigfoot siting. Bigfoot has to have appeared on more t-shirts than anyone else. He's everywhere folks....and nowhere at the same time.

• There was a point yesterday where Caroline was whining because we weren't going to a playground we saw on Friday evening. I responded by saying "you girls are spoiled, and when you don't get what you want at any given moment you complain, and it's unacceptable". Caroline responded by saying "well you two are the ones that spoil us, so it's not our fault. How do you expect us to react?" I really didn't need to hear that from her!

That's all for now. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!