Royal Gorge

We started the day back at Garden of the Gods so I could buy a book entitled "Roadside Geology of Colorado". We ended up with a couple of other books, history books in which Michelle was interested. They look good enough that I might even try them out.

We proceeded towards Canon City where Royal Gorge is located. Its really a bit of a cheesy tourist trap, but has some inherent, natural beauty if you look beyond the gift shop and carousel. It was a bit pricey to enter the "park", but once in, you have free reign of the place. Only the Skycoaster (more on this later) and the burro rides are not included in your entry fee.

We began by walking across the bridge. On the bridge, you are roughly 1100 feet above the Arkansas River. It's quite a view! We could see rafters floating down the river. I think we might have to plan a rafting trip in the future. It looked like a really good time. At least it looked that way from about a quarter mile up. 

The bridge is the highest suspension bridge in the United States. It is roughly as long as it is high above the river. It is held up by 2100 strands of galvanized wire and the deck of the bridge is made of wooden planks. You could see the river below between the planks. We also could see the movement of the bridge as it swayed in the wind. This was a little bit disconcerting but they don't call it an "amusement" for nothing! Of course I could only think of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge the entire time. My family agrees that science has ruined my life and may be ruining theirs as well.

Once across, we made our way up to Point Sublime. A lookout that happens to be right next to the highest Skycoaster in the United States. If you've never seen a Skycoaster, it is two very tall towers with a steel-cabled swing strung between them. Riders lay down in a "pouch" made of canvas and are pulled to their highest point (about 100 feet) by a third cable. One of the riders has to pull the latch to release them and they swing forward and back, reaching speeds of up to 50 mph, in this case. 

By "in this case", I mean JC rode this thing! He was going to ride alone, but since they weren't doing any single riders (I'm sure because they were so crowded) he was paired with a complete stranger. He seemed okay with that. He said it was a lot of fun and he was glad he did it. I can't imagine what they felt like being what must have seemed like in the middle of the canyon, 1200 feet above the river held up by nothing more than a couple of pieces of steel rope.

We "hiked" up to the line for the Aerial Tram to get back to the other side of the canyon. As we are not accustomed to walking with changing elevations, it may or may not have winded some of the people in our family. I can say with absolute certainty that I definitely got winded. It didn't help that one of our group was recovering from an injury sustained in a fight with the curb of the sidewalk a couple of days ago in Denver.

We boarded the tram not noticing the plaque in the picture on the left. We moved slowly out from the boarding area and began to pick up speed. The operator said something, but I was too nervous to hear. Suddenly the car came to an abrupt stop. The operator said something else, but all I caught were the words "power surge" and figured something must have gone wrong. Not pleasant! Especially the uneasy waiting as the car simply sat there. We found out later that JC was more nervous on the tram than the Skycoaster. That's good because I was pretty nervous, too!

We finally began to move and picked up speed. We moved about 2200 feet across and were about 1200 feet above the bottom of the canyon. It was a great experience, but I was surely thinking about the maximum tension in the cables, all the while estimating the mass of each of the 34 people in the car as we moved across. I looked at the angles of the cables and thought about tension the entire time. I was able to be somewhat cognizant that I had a camera in my hand and should take a few shots. Basically, I hung my hand out the window and pressed the button. So, if you can call that "taking pictures"...