Driving Up Pikes Peak Highway – In A Colorado Minute (Week 279)
The Colorado mountain Pikes Peak is the highest mountain in the Front Range
of the Rocky Mountains – with the summit being at 14,115 feet
(4,302.31 m), which makes it one of the 53 fourteeners in the Rocky
Mountains.
This week, Scott, Whiskey and I took our friends Judith
and Christoph (both currently visiting from Berlin) and GJ on a little
road trip down to Manitou Springs and up to the summit of Pikes Peak.
With
nerves of steel, Scott drove our car up the 19-mile Pikes Peak Highway
and later back down. I recorded both rides with a GoPro. In this video,
you can see sped-up excerpts from the drive up. In a few days, I’ll also
release the full version of the that ride. I highly recommend you watch
that longer version as well, since I needed to take out quite a few of
those hairpin turns to create a 1-minute version for the In A Colorado Minute
series. It’s possible that I took out the scariest ones… Another
week, I’ll share the drive back down and also a video about the Pikes
Peak summit itself.
Pikes Peak Highway is the only road that takes
you up to the summit, which is about 6,000 feet above the road’s
entrance. Alternatives are the Broadmoor’s Pikes Peak Cog Railroad
that rides up from Manitou Springs and, of course, hiking up the
mountain along marked trails. The highway is a toll-road that cost us
$40 for 5 adults. It takes about an hour to drive up the 19 miles – if
you keep your speed at the recommended 25 mph (and 10 mph in the sharp
turns). However, during the annual race, some cars cover the last 16
miles up in about 12 minutes.
The song in this week’s video is “Green Daze” by Jason Shaw. He has made this and many other lovely tunes available via a CC BY 3.0 license on his website Audionautix. Thank you so much, Jason!
Last
but definitely not least, I highly recommend watching this video in HD –
even if it takes a little longer to load. The low-rez version looks way
too chunky to enjoy it.
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| Driving up Pikes Peak Highway in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado |