Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

By DAVE PHILIPPS, The Gazette

On a recent Sunday morning, traffic on Barr Trail was so hectic that hiker Gerry Nagel hooked a rearview mirror to his sunglasses.

“There are just so many people whizzing by. At least this way I know they’re coming,” he said with a flustered chuckle.

Not a bad idea.

Barr Trail traffic is reaching its summer high tide with gangs of training runners, incline climbers and flatland hikers. A jaunt up Pikes Peak’s main trail can be about as solitary a pursuit as nabbing a parking spot at the mall.

“That’s why I don’t take Barr Trail even though I live a stone’s throw from it. I don’t like to hike on highways,” said Jay Beeton.

People in the region understandably have a strong connection to Pikes Peak. Some climb it once a week. Some set climbing the 14,115-foot summit as the goal of a lifetime. Either way, there’s a lot of people up there.

The lack of solitude has pushed many lovers of the peak to seek new routes to the summit, and there are plenty. Some are harder. Some are easier. With a little searching, anyone can find the right hike.

Beeton, a longtime area resident who worked at The Gazette 2003-2005, prefers the West Beaver Creek Trail that starts from the former mining townsite of Gillette near Cripple Creek and wanders up a lush, green valley on the southwest side of the mountain.

“The path is not particularly steep and goes along this long cascading creek,” Beeton said. “To me, the magic is eventually you reach a point where you can look down on the whole drainage and Cripple Creek beyond. It is one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever hiked.”

And a round-trip is 10 miles shorter than the 25-mile slog on the Barr Trail, which, although Pikes Peak has a reputation as an easy mountain, is the longest standard approach of any fourteener in Colorado.

“I’ve done it three times now,” Beeton said, “and I’ve only run into two people. That’s why I like it. I don’t hike to check off summits on a list. I do it to get out alone in nature. Whether it’s a spiritual experience or whatever you derive from solitude, that’s why I go.”

There is a route fitting almost every reason people climb Pikes Peak.

A path from the northwest side called the Devil’s Playground Trail is attracting more and more “peak baggers” — people who want to check off a list of top peaks — because it’s shorter and easier than Barr Trail.

Of course, not everyone is looking for easy.

Jamie Pierce, owner of Pikes Peak Alpine Guides, teaches a five-day technical mountaineering course that concludes with a rock and snow climb up Pikes Peak’s north face.

On a recent morning as he set out to climb a fourthclass route on the peak’s north side, he said Pikes Peak has a reputation among climbers as a rather dull walk-up.

“Climbers I know tend to dis the peak,” he said. “They dis it because of the highway. They dis it because of all the tourists. I don’t think many of them have ever looked around up here.

“The north side reminds me a lot of the Alps. The rock is fairly solid. There are great alpine routes, and you can blast in on the road and climb immediately instead of hiking in four hours.”

He started up a grassy hillside near a favorite skiing couloir called Little Italy. In a few minutes, he was roped and scrambling up a jumbled alpine face decorated with hanging gardens of purple Alpine forget-me-nots and penstemon.

“Can you believe where we are already?” he said as he caught his breath. “If we were climbing Longs Peak, we’d still be walking in the trees.”

He worked his way over waves of rounded granite that seemed straight out of the Robert Frost poem “Directive”: “great monolithic knees” that the mountain “long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.”

It was a world away from the dusty switchbacks of the main trail.

In an hour, after skirting across the snowy couloir of Little Italy, Pierce emerged on a broad, grassy shoulder with a view of the shadowy, purple summit to the south and lush emerald valleys soaking up the morning sun on the west.

Barr Trail was hidden by the peak. In the hundreds of square miles Pierce could see from the ridge, there wasn’t a hiker in sight.

The only company was a furry pika on a rock, chirping rhythmically with alarm, encouraging Pierce to move on.

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TIPS

- No matter which trail you take, start EARLY. You should plan to be off the summit by noon to avoid afternoon thunderstorms.

- Take plenty of food and water; if you run out, Barr Camp and the Summit House sell both.

- Pack for winter weather. Even on a perfect summer day, the summit is always windy and about 30 degrees colder than Colorado Springs.

- Go easy on the tundra. On trails where the path is faint, or just a series of cairns, try to step from rock to rock to give the delicate alpine plants a break.

- Take a map. The Pikes Peak Atlas, available at most outdoors stores, shows all the trails mentioned in this story.

- If you’re feeling bad, turn around. The only cure for that altitude-induced headache is losing altitude.

- Avoid new hiking boots. Wear a pair of shoes that are comfortable and broken in.

TRIVIA

- Pikes Peak’s isolated alpine zone has developed a scattering of unusual plants. One, the Pikes Peak spring parsley, is found nowhere else in the world.

- Pikes Peak is home to ptarmigans, but they aren’t native. The birds were introduced in 1975.

- The record for a run up the Barr Trail is just over 2 hours, 1 minute.

- Pikes Peak is made of a pinkish granite that formed beneath the earth’s surface about a billion years ago and was pushed above ground about 60 million years ago.

- 278,440 people drove up Pikes Peak Highway in 2005, spending an average of $10.31 on the toll, food and souvenirs. It was enough to cover 98 percent of the highway’s cost.