It was our second year in Colorado, and we started exploring farther afield. An obvious destination was Colorado Springs.
The Springs, as it’s called by locals, is a very different town from Denver. It’s not a giant metropolis, and doesn’t contain the ugliness thereof. And there is a ton of tourist-y stuff to see and do there.
There is a hogback of Dakota Sandstone that runs parallel to, and just to the east of the Rocky Mountains. It is a remnant of the gigantic uplift that created the Rockies 70 to 50 million years ago. Basically, it was a long-buried layer of rock (which is still down there, to the east) from the Jurassic that got torn and lifted up along with the Rockies. It runs the entire length of the Rockies through Colorado, from Wyoming to New Mexico.
I told you all that to tell you this: where the Dakota Hogback runs through Colorado Springs, is a large city park named Garden of the Gods. It is worth visiting. Here’s a view of Pike’s Peak, one of Colorado’s famed Fourteeners, from Garden of the Gods with part of the hogback in the foreground:
Paid subscribers will receive a full-resolution, full-quality version of this image, suitable for printing & framing, in a separate post.
Within the park, along its several miles of paved hiking trails, are numerous features made of once-horizontal slabs of Jurassic sandstone that were tilted straight upward.
This area is very popular with rock climbers, and people come from all over the world to climb these things. Locals come here to learn the sport. Here is an instructor and student preparing for a lesson.
And here is a different student, ready to begin her first climb ever:
And here is an iconic view of the place, with Cheyenne Mountain (yes, the one hollowed out with an Air Force base inside) in the distance. Paid subscribers received a full-res, suitable-for-framing copy of this image a few weeks ago.
Have you ever looked at a photograph that was so detailed and shot with such perspective that it made you want to "fall into it"? You have? Well, the top picture is like that. The word 'amazing' is highly overused and for mundane things. But there is only one word I can think of to describe that top photo - AMAZING! Another fine post.