Colorado Trip: The Incline

I realize this was just a morning trip, but it's totally worth a post of it's own!

So, there's this little trail in Manitou Springs, just outside Colorado Springs.  The Incline is an old cable car track that's been disused and is just a trail now.  And it's pretty much the craziest trail I've ever set foot on.  This thing is just under a mile long, and goes up approximately 2,000 feet in that one mile.  It averages a 40% slope, and reaches a 68% slope at it's steepest.

As it clearly warns, this IS an extreme trail.  And yes, Zach is excited as all get-out to start climbing this thing :)

 

The steepest part, that 68% incline, is just before reaching the False Summit.  Yes, there is a False Summit.  Meaning, what looks like the top of the hill in almost all these pictures is really about 3/4 of the way through.  It levels out just a little, then goes back to a crazy incline to reach the top.  That little bit of leveling means that you can't actually see the true summit.  I knew it was there, and I still felt like crying when I saw how much further I had to go!

The view below is from atop the leveling at the False Summit.

I am a flat-lander, I will admit.  I was sucking some serious wind with the crazy elevation change on this trail.  That actually was what was getting me the most.  My muscles were holding up pretty well (though I did feel my legs the next day!), but I was having to stop very regularly to gasp for air.  I took just over an hour to scale the thing.  Zach took closer to 45-50 minutes (he was a bit ahead of me).  People who are used to the elevation will take under half an hour.

For me, it was like spending an hour on the most diabolical stair-climber ever invented.  I counted steps and made myself go a little further each time before stopping (am not fond of stair climbers, obviously).  When I'd stop to wheeze and try to catch my breath, I'd snap a few pictures.  So, yes, it is a fiendish stair climber, but it's a stair climber with an absolutely phenomenal view.

We made it!

Hooray!

You come back down via Barr Trail (the same one that goes all the way up to the top of Pike's Peak).  It's about a 3.5 mile round trip with Barr Trail too.  People do laps on it!  An older gentleman was doing laps while we were there.  Went up and down the Incline itself twice (he passed us), then after his third trip, he came back down Barr.  He passed us (again) on this trip down and told us, "Just didn't have a fourth one in me today!"  Crazy mountain folk!!  Course, if I lived out there, I'd probably be out there every or every other weekend, too.  Can't beat a great workout AND a great view!