America the Beautiful and Pikes Peak Cog Railway

Pikes Peak Cog Railway

In honor of Election Day, I thought I’d write about what’s really great about America—aside from our great democratic process. I could list a lot, but here I’d like to report on our breathtaking scenery, our magnificent vistas. There’s so much of it from sea to shining sea and most definitely here in the Rocky Mountain West. It was indeed from atop Pikes Peak, the 14,115-foot mountain in Colorado’s Front Range, just ten miles from Colorado Springs, that thirty-six-year-old English professor Katherine Lee Bates found inspiration for the poem “Pikes Peak” in 1893. This work would eventually be modified a few times over to become “America the Beautiful,” our National Hymn.

Me at the Top of Pikes Peak at the America the Beautiful Plaque

Miss Bates found her way to the top of this fourteener, one of fifty-four more-than 14,000-foot summits in Colorado, via the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, a national treasure that still chuffs up to the top of this great mountain most every day of the year. There she admired the expansive views where the words of the poem began to fill her head.

I took this same railway during my recent visit to The Broadmoor, Colorado’s top resort,  a couple of weeks ago. My boyfriend, Steve, and I arrived at the parking lot of the old depot in Manitou Springs on a glorious fall day. “With windchill, it’s fourteen degrees at the top,” the attendant promptly declared. “Know that it’s always thirty to forty degrees colder at the summit,” she continued.

Fortunately we were each toting a big bag of clothing, so we grabbed some sandwiches and drinks to go and boarded the train. We exchanged pleasantries with our neighbors since we’d be sitting face-to-face with them throughout most of the three-hour-and-ten-minute roundtrip excursion on this historic railway and settled in for the ride. We chatted above the laborious din of what sounded like a big diesel truck stuck in first gear and gazed out the windows to take in the views. The train spliced through the forest alongside streams and waterfalls and boulders of all shapes and sizes, some as big as a car. Our ears popped as the announcer recommend we hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

As soon as we emerged from the forest above tree line, I understood why this excursion has been one of America’s favorites—one of only a few cog railways in the United States—since its beginning in 1889. The Pikes Peak Cog Railway is the highest rack railway in the world as well as the highest railway in North America and the Northern Hemisphere. And here, up on this vast and barren land—the last climb to the summit—it truly did feel as though I was on top of the world. (OK, there’s always Everest. But still.)

I had only been on one other fourteener:  Mt. Evans in Colorado. (Read about that adventure at Mt. Evans:  A Fine Summer Outing on One of America’s Fourteeners) As magnificent as that was, here on top of Pikes Peak, I felt even higher.

“That’s because you’re looking down at an elevation of about 5,000 feet,” Steve explained. “At Mt. Evans, there wasn’t as much of an elevation gain,” he explained.

Spectacular Views from the Cog Railway

Looking Down Upon the Plains

Indeed, here I gazed upon the far-reaching plains; here I could see as far as Kansas. I imagined how it was for Katherine Lee Bates up there in her long skirt in an age before cars, computers and cellphones (which sadly had a good signal at the summit).

By now Steve and I had donned every single one of our layers. We padded out of the railcar and walked around the mountaintop taking in the views from every angle. It was brisk and my face stung from the cold and the wind but it was still stupendous. Had we been better prepared we would have hung out at the summit a little longer; instead we picked up hot chocolate and donuts inside, immediately took some aspirin and began to pound water. Here at over 14,000 feet, I was already feeling lightheaded and loopy. It was an exhilarating Rocky Mountain high on many levels.

We cozied up to each other on the descent as our chills lessened and our heads cleared. We pushed our feet to the floorboards as we hit grades as high as 25% and I was happy to learn that this legendary railway also holds a perfect safety record.

Once back at the station, I studied the section of cog railway track on display. “Wow, that’s really amazing,” I said to Steve. “And to think they came up with such technology well over a hundred years ago,” I added.

No wonder Miss Bates felt impressed. And best of all, thankfully her words ring true today.

Steve and Me Bracing Against the Sun, Wind and Cold at the Top of Pikes Peak

Note that the Pikes Peak Cog Railway runs year-round. I think it would be especially spectacular as a super snowy adventure. But bring/wear  lots of down and expedition-weight clothing.

The Original Poem for America the Beautiful

O beautiful for halcyon skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the enameled plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

Till souls wax fair as earth and air

And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought

By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale

Of liberating strife,

When once or twice, for man’s avail,

Men lavished precious life!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

Till selfish gain no longer stain,

The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

Till nobler men keep once again

Thy whiter jubilee!