Manitou Springs Incline

Manitou Springs Incline Loop, and Garden of the Gods

RT: 8.81 miles

Elevation Gain: 3476’

I was still sore from the fall a few days ago, but needed to get out, so I made a reservation to hike the Manitou Springs Incline first thing in the morning. I’ve done this route several times, so I’m just going to show you how beautiful it was that day.

At the top I got some lensball photos of the incline and hikers. There seemed to be a lot of regulars here today.

Then I continued on to Rocky Mountain. I broke trail here, and got another lensball photo of Pikes Peak from the summit

I once again broke trail to Mt Manitou, and then took the Barr Trail down. It was icy everywhere!

Here’s a look at the Incline from later in the day

Our sticker is still looking good!

BTW, the sticker can be bought here

I wasn’t yet done with my day. I decided to head over to Garden of the Gods to see what it looked like with a fresh dusting of snow.

Here’s a look at the accident site from the other day

And the Bighorn Sheep were still there, but only showing their butts today. There was a ranger in the area and no place to park, so no great shots.

All in all, a great day to get out!

RT Length: 4.72 miles

Elevation Gain: 2331’

Date: 12-13-2020

Partner: SkyDiverHiker

I haven’t been to the Manitou Springs Incline since they’ve implemented the reservation system, but since there was high avalanche danger all across the state, I figured today was a good day to go. The reservations were free, and easy to obtain. There are 25 slots open every half hour for reservation, and I secured the last two. However, when we arrived we only passed/say about 8 other people all day, and no one was enforcing the permit system. Maybe they took a snow day?

We paid to park while it was still dark and headed up the trail. It was 12 degrees outside, and SkyDiverHiker had on his new gloves. We weren’t sure if we were going to hike the incline once or twice today, so we decided to take it slow. We also wanted to see the sunrise, and we knew at our normal speed we’d get there half an hour before it happened, so if we went a little slower we’d stay warm longer. Check out our view of Manitou Springs

We kept the pace slow and steady. About halfway up SkyDiverHiker’s calves started cramping up, so we decided to make this a one and done day.

It took us about 40 minutes to reach the top, so we had a bit of waiting to do.

We took a selfie at the top: notice how cold it is? My hair is frozen!

While we waited I got out my new photography sphere. I took a bunch of photos, trying to figure out how it worked. Unfortunately, it was still really cold outside, and my phone froze. The stylus didn’t work and my fingers were numb, so I didn’t get as many pictures as I’d of liked. I need some more practice.

It seemed to take forever for the sun to rise!

Jill and her husband met us at the top, and she took a few sphere photos too. Then we were off, back down the trail

Halfway down we had someone ask us if we’d seen a dog. No, we hadn’t, but a few minutes later a medium sized black mutt raced past us. We ended seeing the dog again and were able to coax it to us. We retraced our steps back up the trail to the owners, who were grateful, but I had to ask them if they had a leash? They looked confused, said “Oh yeah”, and got it out and put it on the dog. When we got back to the truck it was still 12 degrees outside! Brrrr!

GS Troop 2393 Onesie Incline Hike

RT Length – 4.5 miles

Elevation Gain: 1962’

The girls planned this event 8 months ago. The goal: to hike to the top of the Manitou Incline wearing onesies. Me, being their leader and knowing they weren’t referring to outfits they wore as infants, had to look up what onesies were (pajama-like costumes that are all one piece). This sounded fun to me so we worked on setting up a date. We settled on the first week in December because we thought the weather would be cooler, there’d be less people climbing, and because band and cheerleading would be over so more girls could attend. They all met at my house and we carpooled to the free shuttle lot. Side note: they all drive now, which is weird since I’ve known them all since they were 5.

I’ve never used the shuttle before but it sounded like fun to go with a group and it would save us $20 in parking fees so I was all onboard with this idea. Once the shuttle arrived we had to wait a while for it to take us to the incline (it only goes every 20 minutes) so we talked about our strategy and goals for the climb.

I’d shown them a video last week about hiking the incline and they were all excited to try it themselves.

When we finally arrived we walked up to the start of the incline (one of the harder parts of the hike, actually) and the girls put on their microspikes. I wasn’t 100% sure they were needed, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and the troop owned enough pairs so everyone wore them. I took a selfie with the girls and we were off!

We started out at a moderate pace

But after the first 200 steps or so they all needed a break and two of them were having a hard time breathing. Not gonna lie, I got a little worried at this point. When I hike the Incline I don’t take breaks. Well, today we took a lot of breaks. And I mean a lot. Every 100 steps or so we stopped.

Soon the girls had tied the arms of the onesies around their waist (who’s idea was it to wear felt on this thing?) and we stopped at the Christmas Tree (the halfway point) for an extended rest.

We were glad we’d chosen to hike in December: Yes, the weather was cooler (this would not have been fun in onesies in the sun) and there were less people than normal.

More hiking….

And more resting…

But to be fair, their rests were short and they all kept going. One of my girls had her Tourettes start acting up and she had a hard time seeing due to the ticks but she never complained. They were all tired but no one wanted to quit. I’m proud of them for that! The microspikes ended up coming in handy after the bailout spot, when the trail got icy for a bit.

The girls stayed pretty much together, only being separated by a few feet or so for most of the hike, with Kimberly powering on ahead as we neared the summit. Finally, after an hour and a half of hiking, the girls made it to the summit!

Jules got out the Fun Dip and the girls rested for a bit while I got out the hot chocolate and apple cider. We ended up only having the apple cider though, as my fuel canister had run out and we didn’t have anything to heat the water (bummer!)

I took a selfie because hey, how many people hike the incline in costumes? Caroline did as well, I’m guessing for SnapChat

I tried to get them to continue on to Rocky Mountain but Emily had winterguard practice and everyone was hungry so it was time to gather our stuff and head back down. The Barr Trail down was much icier than the Incline route up and I was glad we had spikes. The girls realized just how important they were when one of Emily’s broke and she took it off. In less than a minute she slipped and fell on the ice, landing on her back. Hard. Ouch! But bless her, she took some ibuprofen and kept hiking. We made it back down to the shuttle at 1:45pm, making this a 4.5 mile hike with 1962’ of elevation gain in 3 hours.

We rode the bus back to our cars and drove to Fargo’s Pizza, where Breanna met up with us and we all chatted for a bit. It’s so cool watching these girls grow up! We discussed boys, school dances, cookie sales, homework, teachers, and a little about our upcoming trip to California.