PIKES PEAK

'Pikes Peak' (formerly 'Pike's Peak', see below) is a mountain in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, 10 miles (16 km) west of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in El Paso County. It is named for Zebulon Pike, an explorer who led an expedition to the southern Colorado area in 1806. At 14,115 feet (4302 m), it is one of Colorado's 54 fourteeners. Drivers race up the mountain in a famous annual race called the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Pikes Peak is a federally designated National Historic Landmark.

Geography and geology

Much of the fame of Pikes Peak is due to its location near the eastern edge of the Rockies. Unlike most other similarly tall mountains in Colorado, it serves as a visible landmark for many miles to the east, far into the Great Plains of Colorado. Driving south on Interstate 25 towards the city of Colorado Springs, it comes into view from a distance of more than 130 miles (209 km). On a clear day, the peak can be seen from Denver (over 60 miles North), and from locations near the Kansas border to the east.
Pikes Peak is made of a characteristic pink granite, called Pikes Peak granite. The pink color is due to a large amount of potassium feldspar. The granite was formed by an igneous intrusion in the Pre-Cambrian age, approximately 1.05 billion years ago, during the Grenville orogeny.

Name

During the period of exploration in Colorado, many would refer to the mountain as "Pike's Peak," after Zebulon Pike, the man who first documented it. Later, some suggested "James' Peak," after Edwin James, the man who first climbed it. The name went back and forth until it was settled as the former.
Originally the peak was called "Pike's Peak", but in 1891, the newly-formed US Board on Geographic Names recommended against the use of apostrophes in names, so officially the name of the peak does not include an apostrophe. In addition, in 1978 the Colorado state legislature passed a law mandating the use of "Pikes Peak" only. Even so, the old name is often seen.

Discovery

Pikes Peak as seen from within Manitou Springs, Colorado.

The first non-natives to sight Pikes Peak were the members of the Pike expedition, led by Zebulon Pike. After a failed attempt to climb to the top in November 1806, Pike wrote in his journal (emphasis added):
:...here we found the snow middle deep; no sign of beast or bird inhabiting this region. The thermometer which stood at 9° above 0 at the foot of the mountain, here fell to 4° below 0. The summit of the Grand Peak, which was entirely bare of vegetation and covered with snow, now appeared at the distance of 15 or 16 miles [24–26 km] from us, and as high again as what we had ascended, and would have taken a whole day's march to have arrived at its base, 'when I believed no human being could have ascended to its pinical' (''sic'' -- "pinnacle" was intended). This with the condition of my soldiers who had only light overalls on, and no stockings, and every way ill provided to endure the inclemency of the region; the bad prospect of killing any thing to subsist on, with the further detention of two or three days, which it must occasion, determined us to return.
This entry has led to an oft-stated claim that Pike said ''no one had ever, nor would ever reach the top of Pikes Peak.'' Placed in context, he is making a reasonable assessment of his men's prospects of reaching the top in difficult circumstances.

History

Gold miners at Pikes Peak, ca. 1858.

Climbing Pikes Peak, Colorado, in winter, rounding Windy Point, ca. 1890

The first European to climb the peak came 14 years after Pike in the summer of 1820. Edwin James, a young student who had just graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, signed on as the relief botanist for the Long Expedition after the first botanist had died. The expedition explored the South Platte River up as far as present-day Denver, then turned south and passed close to what James called "Pike's highest peak." James and two other men left the expedition camped on the plains and climbed the peak in two days, encountering little difficulty. Along the way, he was the first to describe the blue columbine, Colorado's state flower.
Gold was discovered in the area in 1858. ''Pike's Peak or Bust'' became the slogan of the Colorado Gold Rush; see also Fifty-Niner. This was more due to Pikes Peak's notoriety than any actual significant gold find anywhere near Pikes Peak. It was not until 1893, when an ancient volcanic caldera on the west slope, five miles wide, was found to have rich gold deposits. This became the Cripple Creek Mining District, and led in 1893 to the last major gold rush in the lower forty-eight states.
In July 1860, Clark, Gruber & Company began minting gold coins in Denver bearing the phrase "Pikes Peak Gold" and an artist's rendering of the peak on the obverse. As the artist had never actually seen the peak, it looks nothing like it. In 1863 the US Treasury purchased their minting equipment for $25,000 to open the Denver Mint.
Katharine Lee Bates was moved to write the words to the song "America the Beautiful" in 1893, after having traveled to the top of Pikes Peak on a carriage ride.

Pikes Peak today

View of Pikes Peak, from Woodland Park

Pike's Peak visitor center (summit)

There is a visitor center with a gift shop and restaurant on the summit of Pikes Peak, and there are several ways to ascend the mountain. The Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway is a cog railroad operating from Manitou Springs to the summit year-round, conditions permitting. Automobiles can be driven to the summit via the Pikes Peak Highway, a 19 mile (31 kilometer) road which starts a few miles up Ute Pass at Cascade. This road, which is unpaved after the halfway point, was made famous worldwide by a short film featuring Ari Vatanen racing his Peugeot up the steep, twisty slopes as part of the annual Pikes Peak International Hillclimb race. The road has a series of switchbacks, treacherous at high speed, called "The W's" for their shape on the side of the mountain. The road is maintained by the city of Colorado Springs as a toll road.
The most popular hiking route to the top is the Barr Trail, approaching the summit from the east. The trailhead is just past the cog railway depot in Manitou Springs. One can walk, hike, or bike the trail. Runners race to the top and back on the Barr Trail in the annual Pikes Peak Marathon. Some have pursued oddball feats on the trail, such as dribbling a soccer ball or walking backwards to the top. In 1929 Bill Williams of Rio Hondo, Texas, pushed a peanut to the summit with his nose over the course of three weeks.[1] Another route begins at the Crags Campground, approaching the summit from the west.[2][3].
Conditions at the top are, for the most part, not hospitable. The thin air contains only 60% of the oxygen available at sea level. Snow is a possibility any time year-round, and thunderstorms are common in the summer, bringing hail and wind gusts occasionally in excess of 100 m/h (160 km/h). Lightning is especially dangerous above the treeline. A signboard at the cog railway depot in Manitou Springs provides the summit temperature every day, a number that is rarely higher than 40 degrees Fahrenheit, even in mid-summer.
Since 1969, the summit of Pike's Peak has been the site of the United States Army Pike’s Peak Research Laboratory, a medical research laboratory for the assessment of the impact of high altitude on human physiological and medical parameters of military interest.
Pikes Peak was once the home of a ski resort, but it closed due to a lack of snow; Pikes Peak does not receive the massive snowdrops that some other mountains do. Expensive snowmaking was required to make the resort feasible, and the high winds on Pikes Peak would often blow the artificial snow away ("to Kansas" as one of the former owners of the resort put it).

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