7 Falls down Pike's Peak
Having been there a year ago Kristi and I were looking forward to visiting 7 Falls with the family. As it turns out after seeing Catamount, 7 Bridges, and Manitou Incline, it’s kind of a dud. I mean, there were only 244 stairs total. Now they were attached to the side of a rock and fairly steep, but nevertheless that isn’t even 10% of the Manitou Incline. So on Thursday, our last day, we headed out to 7 Falls, which unbeknownst to us changed their shuttle service location which made getting there extra fun.
We recreated the steps we took with the compound, forcing our kids to take the same pictures in the same locations and everything. In all honesty 7 Falls is a very nice, albeit borderline “touristy” site to visit and as long as your knees are good, a very accessible location.
Kristi and I even got to recreate a then (orange green) and now (black and blue) couples photos. So romantic, right? Interesting that we chose black and blue…
Thursday also happened to be the nicest and warmest day of the week. As the day progressed we kept checking to see if PIke’s Peak was going to be open. We had accepted that we’d just go as high as we could because it was now or never, so knowing that 18 of 19 miles were open we headed out with the hope that we could reach the summit. Wouldn’t you know, as we pulled up to the gate the signage stated they were OPEN TO THE TOP! Excellent! So up we went. I had a blast (albeit intense) driving up the mountain, someday I’d love to go back with a manual sedan instead of an automatic mini-van, but the Odyssey did well nonetheless. I should note, it was in the high 60’s at the base of the mountain, and 38 degrees at the top, what a difference.
Here are a few shots from the summit.
From the very top we could see (as picture) the North Catamount Reservoir, South Catamount Reservoir. and the Crystal Creek Reservoir. As you look at the photo in the middle is the South Catamount Reservoir where we had been a few days before, you can see how isolated it was :), and you can see up and to the right of the reservoir the Green Mountain Falls town, or trailhead. Kind of fun to see where we were and where we came from.
A few more shots from the day.
