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Pikes Peak

Photo: Ahodges7 / CC BY-SA 3.0

⛰️ Mountains

Pikes Peak

Colorado Springs, CO · Front Range

About

Rising 14,115 feet over Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak is the fourteener that put a phrase in everyone's mouth: Katharine Lee Bates wrote America the Beautiful after taking in the view from the top in 1893. You can reach the summit three ways, by the cog railway out of Manitou Springs, by the 19-mile toll highway with its switchbacks and famous June hill climb, or on foot up the long grind of Barr Trail. However you get there, the rite of passage is a fresh doughnut at the summit house, where the high-altitude recipe is the only one that comes out right at 14,000 feet.

Highlights

14,115-foot summit, one of Colorado's 54 fourteenersCog railway, the 19-mile Pikes Peak Highway, or Barr Trail to the topThe view that inspired America the BeautifulAnnual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb every JuneHigh-altitude doughnuts at the summit visitor center

Getting there

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The Rocky Mountains21 places

The Rocky Mountains

Alpine lakes, fourteeners, and golden aspen along the spine of the West. The Rockies at their most iconic: the Maroon Bells mirrored in their lake, the Tetons rising straight off the valley floor, Glacier's Going-to-the-Sun Road, the red spires of the Garden of the Gods, and Idaho's serrated Sawtooths over Redfish Lake. From Colorado's San Juans to the Wyoming Tetons, Montana's Glacier, and the Idaho high country, with high passes and old mining towns in between.