The Cog Railway

If you could go from 6,571 feet to 14,100 feet in about an hour and a half, would you? I said “Get me to the top of the mountain!” Sometimes you just can’t wait for those majestic views, and the Cog Railway speeds up the waiting factor. This is the worlds highest Cog Train, and lucky for us Coloradoans, it’s just a quick drive to Colorado Springs, and you can be amongst the clouds on America’s Mountain.

Now I am hopefully assuming we have all heard the some “America the Beautiful.”
If you are having a short-term memory lapse, this should help.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain

If you want the whole song, Wikipedia is at your fingertips! But, those four lines are important because Katherine Lee Bates wrote them after being inspired by the beauty of Pikes Peak. I too tried to write a song after seeing Pikes Peak, but I will spare you!

But I won’t spare you some quick info. about this mountain. Hike, ride, horseback up, or bike…you will find a moment when you are in awe of the beauty of nature. Spruce, Pines, Elk, Deer, Bighorn Sheep, Sweeping panoramic views of KS, CO, New Mexico, the Continental Divide…you can’t look a wrong direction. You can’t take a bad picture either. The top is clear…timberline is reached at the top, which means trees stop growing, because there is not enough moisture. Open land. I needed more time up top. But luckily now, I can look at pictures, even though I still wonder if that’s real.

After seeing a view over 14,000 feet above the ground you too might just bust out in a song. And I would love to hear what you come up with!