The Artful Engineer

Back in May a long-time friend came to visit and he suggested driving to the top of Pikes Peak. From my house, it’s about an hour to get down to Colorado Springs and about another hour to get to the top of the mountain. The image above gives an idea of what the road is like. Safe enough, but slow. Unless the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is underway, an event that I have not personally witnessed but sounds frightening.

Pikes Peak is at 14,115 feet (4,302 meters). At the top is a building with a cafe. As cafe’s go it is cafeteria-mediocre; it’s primary appeal is that it is up there at all. I didn’t stay there very long, though. My house south of Denver is at 6,400 feet where there is only 79% of the oxygen that there is at sea level. On Pikes Peak, there is only 72% of the oxygen that there is at my house. I noticed the difference. I didn’t really have a headache while I was up there, but did feel like there was one struggling to get out. For visitors who live at sea level, visiting Pikes Peak with only 57% of the oxygen they are used to is probably somewhere between rough and brutal. So, in the end it was a brief one-hour visit at the top but I got some nice photographs.

When you look east from the top of Pikes Peak you can definitely visualize the Great Plains. It would be fun to start with a photo similar to the one above taken on a really clear day and Photoshop in a little St. Louis Arch on the horizon. (The Arch is just under 1,300 miles nearly straight east, so too far to see, but still fun to contemplate.)

I was fortunate on my visit because there was a storm rolling in which made for some spectacular weather and lighting. The exposed rocks made nice compositions.

Rocky Ridge.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S 
at 99mm, 1/500 sec, f/8, ISO 64.

To Trail.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S 
at 120mm, 1/750 sec, f/8, ISO 64.

The image below was my favorite of the day. On the drive down I could see that there was a good chance that this ridge was going to get hit by some nice light so I pulled over and jumped out. Within a few minutes I was rewarded:

Last weekend—about three months after these images were taken—my wife and I were driving not far from Pikes Peak and it looks from below like all the snow is gone now, although I am sure some patches remain. There are only two places in the US where you can drive up to 14,000 feet and both happen to be within two hours of where I live, so I will have to try the other one, too. I do appreciate the fact that they (strive to) keep the road to Pikes Peak open year-round, so some winter images should be doable, too, but I am not sure how many of the pullouts they keep cleared. I would definitely like to take a quick trip in the fall to see if there is a spot to get what amounts to an aerial view of some fall color on the slopes below. Regardless, its a fun place to get some nice high mountain images without having to hike there.