![365_Exercise[2009]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2494/3850763936_c7edf20023.jpg)
These are the highest set of stairs in the world. They are the stairs of the Pikes Peak Incline Trail, also known as the Manitou Incline. The incline was originally built to support the construction of a hydroelectric plant and its waterline. It was also used as a tourist attraction to take tourists to the summit of Pikes Peak via a cable car.
The stairs are actually old railroad ties. The incline is just over a mile and you gain 2,011 feet in elevation. After climbing to the top of the 2,744 stairs, you then have the option to continue hiking the Barr Trail (about 8 miles, I think) to the summit of Pikes Peak, turning around and walking straight back down those stairs, or taking a 4 mile trail back down to the base of the mountain.
Interestingly, the incline is on privately owned property and is off limits to the public. The many people who climb and train on the incline are actually trespassing. There is, however, a steady push to make the trail open to the public.
4 comments:
Where's the last option, have someone drive you back down! LOL Fabulous image, it looks like a killer hike!
Tammy does everything A-About face, you Drive up then walk down BELIEVE ME, that is worse than Wild Horse Mountain, it was only 1,500 feet, I ain't walking Pikes Peak Incline, well I'm inclined not too.
HOLY CRAP. I have had my butt kicked by insane stairs above Boulder, but none came close to climbing over 2000 feet! I never knew about these stairs... but now I desperately want to climb them.
This is a great take of these stairs. Nice to have gotten them all in one shot. I like the scene in general where the stairs draw one's eye up to that faultless sky. Lots of textures here.
When I was in high school and lived at the foot of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, there were stairs up the side of that hill (here in Arkansas, it would be called "mountain")that could have qualified to be as lengthy as this one, but they were broken up into several stairs, not one continuous set of stairs. So, they would not qualify for any record. If I got away from the house early enough, I caught a transit bus to the school. If not, I walked and climbed those stairs. Most of the time, you would have found me walking.
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