Junction US 24—Summit of Pikes Peak; 18 miles, Pikes Peak Highway.

Graveled road; usually open by May or June, depending upon the snow.

The Pikes Peak Highway, built as a toll road in 1915 and a free highway since 1937, is the second highest automobile road in the State; that up Mount Evans is the higher. Automobile races to the summit are held annually on Labor Day. Participants drive standard racing models and exhibit great skill and recklessness in driving their machines along the twisting highway. The races draw great crowds that line the upper reaches.

Pikes Peak, although surpassed in height by 27 in Colorado, is the most noted of the State's mountains, principally because it is isolated from the higher ranges and affords a magnificent view of the mountain and plain country. The peak was early made accessible by the Manitou & Pikes Peak Railway, better known as the Cog Road; the first train of tilted cars reached the summit on June 30, 1891.

The Ute legend of creation centers on this mountain. The Ute believed that the Great Spirit formed it by pouring ice and snow through a hole He had made in the sky by turning a large stone around and around. He then stepped from the clouds to the mountain top, descended part way, and made trees and plants by putting His fingers in the ground. As the snow melted, He formed rivers by drawing channels with the small end of His staff, made birds by blowing upon leaves, and created animals out of His staff. The grizzly bear came from the large end of the staff and was master of all animals. Later, the daughter of the Great Spirit, venturing far from home, fell into the power of the Grizzly, who forced her to marry him. The Indians, fruit of this union, were taken under the protection of the Great Spirit, but the bears were punished by being compelled to walk on all fours.

Another legend on the origin of Pikes Peak, well known to the Plains Indians, parallels stories of the Flood. What is now Colorado, according to the legend, was given by the Great Spirit Manitou to the Indians as a paradise. Soon tiring of its perfection, they decided to leave the earth and journey to the Happy Hunting Ground. They gathered great sacks of earth, rock, and maize, so that they might have with them some of what seemed good to them on earth. When they were about to pass through the Portal of the Sun into the presence of the Manitou, their wizards commanded the seas and rivers to loosen their waters and destroy the earth. Suddenly the voice of Manitou thundered above them, commanding them to put down their burdens. The frightened Indians dropped their sacks into one vast heap, which rose high above the flood water—Pikes Peak.

The first extended mention of the peak occurs in the memoirs of Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, who saw it in 1806, probably first from what is now Las Animas (see Tour 9a). Pike estimated its height at more than 18,000 feet and described it in his journal as "so remarkable as to be known to all savage nations for hundreds of miles around, to be spoken of with admiration by the Spaniards of New Mexico, and to be the bounds of their travels northwest." He and his followers endeavored to scale the height, but lack of provisions and intense cold prevented.

Although Pike predicted that the "Great Peak," as he called it, would never be scaled, the first recorded ascent was made in 1820 by Dr. Edwin James, botanist and historian of Major Stephen F. Long's expedition. Long named it James Peak, while maps published in 1814 and 1818 used the name "Highest Peak." Trappers and hunters continued to call it Pikes Peak, and it was so recorded on a map made in 1835 by Colonel Henry Dodge.

During the gold rush of 1859, Pikes Peak was the landmark that guided an army of prospectors westward. Thousands of Conestoga wagons crossed the plains, their canvas covers bearing the crudely lettered inscription, "Pikes Peak or Bust!" Many soon turned back with "Busted, by God" daubed below. For many years the entire mountain region was commonly known as the Pikes Peak Country. Fabulous tales were circulated about the richness of the area. "We learn from a man just returned from Pikes Peak," wrote an Iowa newspaper in 1860, "that gold there lies in bands or strata down the slope. The custom of the best miners is to construct heavy wooden sleds with iron ribs similar to a stone boat. These are taken to the top of the peak, several men get into each one and guide it down over the strata. The gold curls up on the boat, like shavings, and is gathered in as they progress. This is the usual method of collecting it."

In CASCADE, 0 miles (7,773 alt., 50 pop.) (see Tour 6b), the Pikes Peak Highway branches south (L) from US 24 (see Tour 5b).

The road passes the old TOLL STATION, 1 mile, the beginning of a steep climb along the western slope of the densely forested mountain to PENGUIN ROCK, 1.1 miles, a curiously formed outcrop resembling a penguin on a cake of ice. Traversing a growth of young spruce and aspen, part of a Forest Service project, the route in its ascent makes numerous hairpin turns and switchbacks. From many points are views of summer cabins below in Fountain Creek. The mountains to the west resemble an expanse of crumpled paper.

At HALFWAY CAMP GROUND (fireplaces, picnic facilities), 8.3 miles, is the first clear view of the summit of Pikes Peak. A stone building, 11.5 miles, set back in a grove of tall pines, houses GLEN COVE (resthouse and restaurant). Many visitors have their pictures taken here in front of a sign reading "Glen Cove, 11,300 alt.," and receive prints on their return. A log cabin (open), owned by the Pikes Peak Ski Club, is furnished with stoves and chairs.

Right on a trail from Glen Cove to the PIKES PEAK SKI CLUB COURSE (free), 0.5 miles.

Wild flowers border the route during summer. Blueberry shrubs carpet much of the shaded forest floor, and in moist open spaces are patches of bluebells, purple monkshood, and yellow butterweed, often waist-high. Near timberline, fragrant and brilliantly colored alpine flowers grow in clusters among the rocks; here are forget-me-nots, mountain pinks, and the fragile alpine gentian, its funneled waxy blossoms streaked with blue and stippled with purple.

From Glen Cove the highway rises sharply to reach timberline (11,400 alt.), 12.3 miles Gnarled pines are numerous, their bark stripped away by constant winds. Portions of the slopes remain snow-covered throughout the year. At the edge of the snow fields, and often in them, grow white marsh marigolds, dogtooth violets, and the alpine primrose. Here is the home of the American pipit, the rosy finch, and the white-tailed ptarmigan, or snow quail.

Pikes Peak now rises abruptly, and the highway ascends by a series of switchbacks along the edge of a high bluff, each turn offering a panorama of mountains and plains. The BOTTOMLESS PIT (L), 14.8 miles, is a vast chasm approximately 1,000 feet deep. From a parking space the giant pines in the pit appear no larger than matchsticks.

The BOULDER FIELD, 15.5 miles, consists of great red granite boulders strewn over the summit of the mountain; from a hairpin turn, 16.5 miles, is (L) an impressive view of the Cripple Creek district (see Tour 5B).

SUMMIT HOUSE, 18 miles (14,110 alt.), erected in 1882 as an observation station for the U. S. Signal Corps, is surmounted with a 25-foot tower (telescope, 10¢). The plains appear as a sea of blue haze; Colorado Springs is a green spot in the foreground. This scene inspired Katherine Lee Bates's poem, "America the Beautiful" (1911). The Summit House is the upper terminal of the Pikes Peak Cog Road (see Tour 5b).

On the summit is held the annual New Year's Eve fireworks display of the AdAmAn Club. As its name implies, this organization adds one member annually, initiating him with the strenuous cold climb to the summit. Formed in 1922 with a membership of five, it now numbers twenty; Rear Admiral Byrd is an honorary member.

Cheyenne Mountain, a rough black hill marked with spiny outcrops along its ridge, is visible below to the southeast (see Colorado Springs). The Indians regarded this mountain as the carcass of the Thirst Dragon summoned by the Manitou to drink up the great flood. The dragon drank so much that, in attempting to climb to heaven, he fell and burst.

In 1880 the U. S. Signal Corps on the summit was in charge of Sergeant John T. O'Keefe, a youth who, when in his cups, sent amazing reports to headquarters. He pictured an eruption of Pikes Peak as occurring on the night of October 29 when "a bright flash clove the darkness and after some laborious climbing we arrived some 200 yards from the crater. The heat . . . was very oppressive, and the ground about us covered with pulverized ashes and lava. I was lost in astonishment. The snow for nearly half a mile around the crater had disappeared. This was all the more remarkable as on the previous day the snow had been several feet deep."

The second eruption occurred on the night of November 7, so O'Keefe reported, and the majesty of the scene was the grandest he had ever seen, not excepting the eruption of Vesuvius in 1852, seen by him when a lad in Italy. "It began with a tremendous burst which shook Pikes Peak to its very foundations, hurling into the air dense clouds of ashes and lava. The explosions succeeded each other with rapidity and increased in violence for about an hour when the volcano seemed to enter a profound sleep ... no doubt Colorado Springs will meet the same fate as Pompeii and Herculaneum."

One of O'Keefe's tall tales, widely believed at the time, described an army of ferocious pack rats that inhabited the rocky crevices of the peak. One evening, alarmed by screams, he rushed into the bedroom to find his wife besieged by rats. With rare presence of mind he encased her in zinc roofing material, thrust his legs into joints of stovepipe, and with a heavy club proceeded to battle the ferocious carnivorous rodents. Hundreds were slain, only to be replaced by reserves from outside. Meanwhile, the rats had devoured a quarter of beef hanging in the room, not to speak of the infant daughter of the couple. Finally, O'Keefe's wife, a mountain-bred girl and an expert with the lariat, threw a wire noose over her husband and attached it to a powerful storage battery. The heavy current electrocuted most of the rats busily nibbling on the sergeant and routed the survivors. O'Keefe's reports soon ceased—whether because the resourceful sergeant was removed to a less dangerous post or because the eruption checked the flow of "strong waters" from Colorado City, is not clear.