Cañon City’s Skyline Drive is a must-see sight during a visit to the Royal Gorge area in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Skyline Drive (Cañon City) – In A Colorado Minute (Week 303)
Skyline
Drive is a scenic one-way road that follows the narrow crest of
hogbacks (steep ridge of hills), allowing for great views of Cañon City
and the Arkansas River Valley. The added thrill: the tight road goes up
and down and through several sharp turns with the valley floor a few
hundred feet below.
Skyline Drive is conveniently located off
US-50 between the town of Cañon City and the main attractions of the
area, the Royal Gorge, carved by the Arkansas River, and the Royal Gorge Bridge,
which until 2001 was the highest suspension bridge in the world. Just
like the bridge, Skyline Drive was created as a local and tourist
attraction. It was built around 1905 by prison inmates. Initially
intended for horse and carriage traffic only, it was soon open to
motorcars as well.
If all that wasn’t enough, Skyline Drive
features dinosaur tracks that can be found in the rocks on the side of
the road. Because this road trip (with Scott and Miriam)
was rather spontaneous, I didn’t realize until I was doing research for
this post, where exactly the imprints of the tracks are. So while, they
do show up on the side of our ride’s footage, I didn’t get a a very
clear picture featuring them. The spontaneous nature of this excursion
and shoot also explains why I had to film through a dirty window. Sorry
about that.
The speed limit on the road is actually 15 mph – so this time-lapse is at 450%.
This
video only shows the ride from the top of the ridge. Very shortly, I
will publish another longer and slower video that will let you see the
whole drive and a few views from the main stopping point.
The song in this video is “Swarm The Hill” by Jason Matherne of Goonygoogoo Productions. Thank you, Jason, for making all your great music available for videos!
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| A lone motorcycle on Skyline Drive in Cañon City, Colorado |