May 28, 2006

  • Rocky Mountain High


    It was a one day thing, but we had a blast.  This morning began with a trip up Pikes Peak on the Cog Railway.  It's the highest Cog Railway line in the world rising to the summit at 14,110 feet. 



    We saw the view that inspired Katherine Bates to write "America the Beautiful"



    We saw this Intermountain Bristle Cone tree which has been dated at 2,200 years old.



    We saw hummingbirds, marmots, and deer.  We saw the Collegiate peaks (Yale and Harvard) which form part of the continental divide. And we allowed our eyes to follow the path of the Sangre de Cristo range.  From the summit of Pikes Peak, you can see peaks in New Mexico a couple hundred miles away. 



    That thin white line just above the mountains and below the clouds is the snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range.


    After Pikes Peak, we spent our afternoon on the other side of the mountain - the underside.  At the Cave of the Winds. 



    That was a fascinating tour for several reasons.  The amazing rock formations.  (One I tried to photograph but couldn't get a good shot is a formation that suddenly makes a right angle, then another so that it looks like a big number 7 hanging from the roof.  Scientists have so-far been unable to determine how the formation could "grow" parallel to the cave floor when everything we know says that it must grow down.)


    I really like the "cave coral"



    This next formation is shiny because of all the hands that have touched it over the years.  The tragedy of this is that water dripping along the formation just slides off without leaving any further mineral deposits, the oils left behind from human touch have "killed" the growth of this formation.  For this reason there is now a law that touching any part of the cave is punishable by a $2,500 fine and loss of driver's license for a year.  - that's not just a Colorado license either.  It's a federal law, so visitors from any state are at risk if they violate the prohibition.




     

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