Our Excursion: 20230921: Colorado Trip Day 12 – Colorado Springs – Manitou Incline
(Part of trip: )
Date of our excursion: 2023-09-21
Location: Colorado Springs & Manitou Springs, CO - Manitou Incline!!!
Mileage: 7.27
Our Planned Itinerary:
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Travelers on this Excursion: |
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We hit some cool places.
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Continents: North America |
Some featured areas we visited: |
Some points of interest we hit: |
Thursday, September 21, 2023
Manitou Springs – Manitou Incline
Today is the big stairs hike. Or is it? When the advanced team checked into the hotel, they learned that breakfast started at 730. How that is possible when the majority of the hotel’s clientele are elderly and probably finish breakfast normally before 5am, we just can’t fathom. But alas. The advanced team also discovered that breakfast is AMAZING, so we obviously can’t miss it or rush through it. So, obstacle #1 is that breakfast starts at 730 and our Incline reservations are at 8. Thirty minutes is not sufficient to eat a hearty free breakfast and make it to the incline check-in by 8. hmmmmmm. We then look at our reservations and see they are from 8-830. So maybe we can do a bit of food shoveling and make it in time. Our brilliant idea is now to see if the reservations are full at 9 – maybe we can get a reservation for 9 and relax and enjoy the breakfast feast. Well, we then see obstacle #2. According to the reservation website, the Manitou Incline is closed 9/20-9/22 due to roadwork. Why didn’t anyone tell us the Incline is closed? Why is it only on the reservation site and we can see this info nowhere else?? We call and no one picks up the phone. We email but apparently everyone has left for the day. Yesterday when the Incline was also supposedly closed, 2 of us visited the incline and hiked up a few steps (without a reservation) and there was no person to check you in or check your reservation. So, we figure, the trail may be officially closed because there is no check in person but it is still open enough for people to go up. We have been looking forward to this torture so we decide we will still drive over and see what the situation is. This actually solves both our obstacles. Since there won’t be a check-in person, we can enjoy breakfast and then head over whenever we are ready to climb.
But first breakfast!! It is a very tasty breakfast. The host gave us a tour of the layout and pointed out key features such as the berry bruschetta. There is no hidden food but we appreciate the guidance nonetheless. 15 minutes to eat would not have been enough time to enjoy this tasty feast! Muffing, croissants, chocolate filled croissants, bagels, cereals, coffee, tea, chocolate milk, oranges juice, berry bruschetta, apple sausage, egg things, scrambled eggs, sweet potatoe bites, fruit, and more. After eating more than enough carbs and protein to get us up the hill, we are ready to head to the Incline.
Instead of a credit card kiosk at the parking, we found a human to take our money. He was friendly and enjoyed chatting. Better than a machine!
Off to the train to use flush toilets then on to the incline! A few people are running up and down the stairs. Yes, we think they are insane. We get a pic taken of us and then we are off! Slowly. Really slowly. Good thing the incline is ‘officially’ closed or ‘open with limited adventurers’. I can’t imagine how this would be with 45-60 new climbers showing up every 30 minutes. The foot traffic today was perfect. There were enough people to chat about the pain but few enough that you didn’t feel like you were always dodging or being dodged.
Every 100 stairs had a numbered placard. This was encouraging because 100 stairs go fairly quickly, at least until the end when you are hitting 2500 and 2600… We knew there were roughly 2700 stairs so you could gauge how much more you had to do. You could also look straight up and straight down to judge your progress, since the hike is a fairly straight line right up a mountain. There is a false summit soon after step 1800 (about 2/3 way up). If you remember this, you won’t be devastated when you reach the false summit and realize you have hundreds more steps to climb.
The views looking out from the steps are great. It is a very good excuse for catching your breath.
Finally we all make it to the top! There is a nice breeze and some great rocks to relax on. Some of us really lie pain and reached the top, traveled down the Barr trail 1+miles and then started the climb again from step 1800. Insane.
We all head down the Barr trail. It’s longer but much easier. The views are nice too. At one point we come to a trail split. One way goes up to Pike’s Peak. Some want to go that way, but we all decide to head down to town instead. We need to get some water.
The trail ends in a parking lot and we have to make our way through the enormous mess of vehicles and people trying to find parking for the cog railway. This town definitely needs to rethink their parking/traffic situation.But, we are happy we aren’t driving here and we found a water bottle filler station. We fill our bottles multiple times to replace some of the sweat lost from our bodies during that climb. The parking attendant is very friendly and shares many stories about the climb and some of the climbers.
Dinner tonight is Italian. The building looks sketchy but this place was recommended. We’ll give it a try. They try to sit us at a table but we ask for a booth. Well, the booth they give us has benches that have lost their springs so we sink into it like a super fluffy couch. It’s very hard to scooch to the far seats. At least it’s comfortable, even though you site pretty low. Better to shovel food straight into your mouth, I guess!
The server told us about a melon with prosciutto appetizer. It sounds crazy but we decide to try it. It looks crazy too! BUT it was really good. Our food was really delicous and filling too! Perhaps we ate too much? Well, we did climb straight up a mountain so maybe we deserved some food.
We again had evening tea in the Tower room. We needed the tea so help our over-full stomachs digest all the Italian food.
Here's a mapped route!
Here are some of our pics...
Click the button to see pics here. This pulls from google photos so it is a bit slow. It should load eventually.
View pics directly in the album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/g9QjKB5zor8F38re6