Bernie's Colorado Journeys; learns about Barr Camp on
Pikes Peak
Bernie's Colorado Journeys;
Barr Camp on Pikes Peak
Hi….
this is your host, Bernie J of Bernie's Colorado
Journeys, “Your Bridge to Adventure”.
There are some names that
when said you know there is importance attached; one of them is Colorado’s
Pike’s Peak, Americas 14,115-ft Mountain.
In 1893, Katharine Lee
Bates, an English teacher at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, agreed to take
a summer teaching position at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.
On taking a trip up Pikes
Peak, starting the six hour ordeal in a horse-drawn carriage and switching to a
burro halfway up the mountain she was inspired to pen the patriotic poem
"America the Beautiful" which was first published in The
Congregationalist newspaper on July 4, 1895.
The road Ms. Bates took was
the Pike's Peak Carriage Road opened in 1888 but this wasn't the only way up
the mountain, on the other side the laying of the track rails on the Cog Road
began on June 11, 1890, and was completed four months later on October 20th. On
June 29, 1891, the first rail car and engine transcended the entire line from
Manitou to the top of Pikes Peak.
I couldn't learn why she
traveled up the Carriage Road and didn't take the train; the only idea that
crosses my mind is that because the tour was a perquisite (perks) from Colorado
College, you take what is offered?
Moving forward in time, Fred Barr and his father, starting in 1914, undertook the improvement of a sightseeing trail up the east face of Pikes Peak. Using only rudimentary equipment and burros, they construct a trail from the top of the now defunct Manitou Incline Railway all the way to the top of Pikes Peak. Work was completed in December of 1918 and the trail was later named Barr Trail.
In 1922, Barr Camp was
constructed about halfway up the trail. This rest stop offers weary hikers an
overnight stay.
Now lets fast-forward to the
21st century and find out about the Mountains popularity now; between the Pikes
Peak Highway and the Broadmoor Pikes Peak Cog Railway, the 2015 visitation
was ~415,000 folks and probably doesn't include all the hikers that work their
way up the mountain. Per the website “barrcamp.com”; over 25,000 hikers visit
Barr camp annually with 2,500 as overnight guests.
In this show we’ll peak
behind the curtain (apologies to the Wizard of Oz) of what goes on to support
the Barr trail hikers that challenge themselves and the mountain to say “we did
it”. But really this is the story of two former caretakers that did a life
style that for the rest us, we might hardly ever consider, living on Pikes Peak
year-round, read winter.
For everything Bernie’s
Journeys start at Bernie's Colorado Journeys in the official state web site for
Colorado Tourism.
http://www.colorado.com/tours/bernies-colorado-journeys
http://www.colorado.com/tours/bernies-colorado-journeys
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