Cog Railway ~Pike's Peak, Colorado

On Monday of our vacation, after visitng my friend Jess, we headed out to Manitou Springs to ride the cog to the top of Pike's Peak (AKA - American's Mountain). The Cog railway, takes you up to the 14,110 foot summit at the top of the moutain. It's insanely beautiful and breathtaking. When you get to a certian spot on the mountain, NO more trees go, becase at a certian elevation point, trees can no longer grow, there isn't enough oxygen for them. Interesting huh? I thought so. It was pretty amazing. It was about 80 degrees at the bottom of the mountain, and it got colder and colder the higher up you went. By the time you got to the top, it was a chilling 39 degrees! Yep, it was COLD! And it was hailing, and SNOWING! becuase the weather was so bad, we couldn't get many pictures of the surrounding area. First of all, it was too darn cold to be outside, The hail/rain/snow was whipping around so violently, it actually HURT your bare skin (since we did have on shorts. LOL) secondly, we were in the middle of a cloud. Seriously, you'll see from the pictures what I mean. Becuase of the elevation, your only allowed 30 mintues at the top before the train comes back down. 30 mintues were all we needed. The elevation really messed with our heads. it was hard to breathe and we got very light headed. it's a strange feeling. Enjoy the pictures. These do no justice to the beauty we were able to see in person!

From the parking lot

The Cog that we rode!

Mountain view.

Clouds started popping up the higher up we got.

I can't remember the name of that mountain over there, but it's sister mountain to Pike's Peak.

See the cloud out there?

Amazing isn't it? And it might seem like I took these pictures crooked, I didn't, that's how steep this was, your at a pretty severe angle.

This is where the trees stop growing.

Windy Point, Elevation 12,129 feet!  That building is straight, we were on the incline.

View of the building as we continued uphill.

At this point it was COLD. We had the windows on the train up.

Here we made it to the summit. The summit is known for these famous donuts, that can only be made at this elevation. They were good. Too bad they cost $2.99 EACH! *YIKES* but of course, we had 2 each. LOL

Man I wish this wasn't crooked!

here's the train, surrounded by the massive cloud! Not only was it snowing and hailing, it was thundering and lightening, and you can't see ANYTHING expect the cloud around you! Freaky!

Here you can tell how hard the wind was blowing and we were getting slammed by the hail. It hurt BADLY. Kudos to Dan (Mark's friend from College who we met at the wedding and ended up on the cog with!)for braving the elements and taking this shot for us! Not many people were brave enough to go outside in this!

Top of the mountain. They had EMT's on staff, for people feeling the elevation effects.

The snow!! Remember it was August 9th, 2010!

Liz & I playing around

Gina & I

Mike & I, back on the train, trying to warm up. I didn't mention before how long the ride was did I? It was long. 3 hours. It took 1.5 hours  EACH direction!

On the way down.

People actually live on the moutain. They are over an hour drive from anything.

We were graced with this pretty double rainbow on our way back down. What an awesome end to the afternoon!

I can't wait to someday go back to Colorado again! We do have MORE Colorado pictures that I still haven't uploaded to the blog. they will be mixed in here and there with all the other posts.