Manitou Incline by "Moonlight...."

I had to place "moonlight" in quotations because the mood didn't peak out until we were on our way down, but that doesn't matter.

Jason, Heather, Kerry, and I did a night hike up the Manitou Incline earlier this month. We actually weren't sure it was going to happen because the afternoon had been quite busy with heavy thunderstorms, but it cleared out by the 8pm meeting time. Funny thing: most of Colorado Springs was wet, wet, wet, but the incline and Barr Trail (our descent route) was dusty, dusty dry!

Anyway, I have noted that we met at the upper lot above the Cog Railway in Manitou Springs at 8pm. Grabbed our headlamps, tightened our laces, and set off. Silly me, the temps had dropped enough that I decided to wear pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Not the best idea for the climb up! You see, the Incline was a sort of railway ride from the town of Manitou Springs up to about 9000 feet to look over the town and city of Colorado Springs. That shut down about 100-years ago, but the rail bed remains, and people here love it. Technically it is private property, owned by the employer of all involved in this particular hike, but it's so popular that nobody seems to mind the trespassing. All sorts of athletes come and train here. It's a mile up the mountain, I mean UP the mountain, with an elevation gain of around 1500 feet, or so. I can't remember for sure, I just remember being impressed. One of these days I'll have to get the GPS out and look again.

What an interesting time to do this hike, though! This was the first time up the thing for both myself and Jason. I haven't seen a view of a city like that since I lived in Hawaii and saw Honolulu and Waikiki from Tantalus (one of the mountains on Oahu)! But it was odd to only see what the headlamp lit in front of you and see nothing but darkness as the "trail" faded away above us. We were all huffing and puffing. Remember: Heather is a triathlete, I am training to do a triathlon next summer, Kerry lives not far from the Incline and does it a few times a month, and Jason is a mega-hiker. The amount of sweat pouring off of us and the amount of panting could make anyone's imagination wander!

(don't let the photo fool you, it's super steep and NOT a bunch of steps!)

We kept on and reached our "summit" about an hour after we began. The view was spectacular!! And the wind was cold. I was immediately grateful that I had on pants and long sleeves....and that I remembered to grab my softshell before leaving the house.

(Manitou Springs leading into Colorado Springs)
(Heather, Jason, Kerry)
(Me standing rather oddly...)
(The other first-timer: Jason)

It took a few minutes in the dark to figure out where Barr Trail met our spot, but it showed up. It's amazing how different everything looks in the dark! Barr Trail is the other trail to the summit of Pikes Peak, one that I desperately want to do. It's 13-miles one-way to the top of the Peak, and we had 3-miles of it to take down to our vehicles. It was amazing! Some of it was slick because of the steepness, but overall, it was just pristine quiet and beauty in the dark. We could hear the stream but couldn't see it. We enjoyed our view of the moon finally peeking out from the clouds, and we loved seeing the lightning that was undoubtedly in Kansas by this time. Above all, we loved the workout. It was time for us all to go home and find our beds (I made it home and to bed by about 1230am, and I had class the next morning...this was a Tuesday night!), but we went happy.

I can't wait to do this one over, and over, and over again! In the meantime, it's now up to Kerry and me to make the date, time, and trail for our next adventure....