One Step at a Time: Our Journey up the Manitou Incline
It was February last winter when my mom asked me what I knew about the Manitou Incline. There was an article that caught her eye in the Denver Post about the abandoned cable car line that was once used to carry pipeline building materials up to Pikes Peak. In the early twentieth century, after the pipelines were finished being built, the cable car became a tourist attraction that carried fancy-clad passengers (picture Titanic) up the side of the mountain to enjoy a high altitude luncheon and breath-taking views. If I remember correctly from a similar article that I read in the Gazette, there was actually a little restaurant at the top!
During more recent times, the railway became unkempt and dangerous, but also drew the attention of extreme hikers seeking to push their physical limits. Despite the condition of the Incline and the fact that hiking it was illegal because it was on private property, climbing it became the thing to accomplish…to add to your bucket list and vault of bragging rights. And then, on February 1, 2013, hiking it became legal and any concern of pressed charges for trespassing was no longer valid.
The legality of the Incline is what made news in the Denver paper and inspired my mom to pull out her own bucket list and a pen.
So, in answering her question to me about what I knew about it, I told my mom I didn’t know very much. In the 13 years that we’ve called Colorado Springs home, we never hiked it, nor desired to, really. I always heard how dreadful it was and how, in order to do it properly, one needed to arrive at the trail head at the break of dawn and it so badly pained your body and relentlessly stole your breath….There was no beating the incline, the incline beat you. But then, out of the same lips of the people who dreaded it so intensely, came words of praise and admiration because the views at the top are like none other and the sense of accomplishment is so great you can carry it in your back pocket for weeks to come. Completing it is like a special club that you can say you just became a part of. So, clearly a love/ hate relationship is what the general consensus says about the Incline.
I agreed that I would hike the Incline with my mom when she asked me to. I just would. It was important to her and so I agreed to it. And, it just so worked out that my sister was planning a visit home from California around the same time that we had planned said ascent. What a valuable thing for the three of us to set out to accomplish together.
For months we researched it, took pictures of it from the west side of town, asked friend after friend after friend and even a few strangers what advice they might share with us so we could better ourselves for this upcoming adventure.
The top three bits of insight that we gleaned from all our inquiries were:
1. Get to the trail head early…like 5:30 a.m. early to beat the heat and insure a good parking spot.
2. Stop when necessary, but for very short periods of time or else we risk losing our momentum.
3. Pack lots of water and don’t bring excess snacks, just one small one for the top.
If I could add one more to the list from my own experience, it would be to always lean forward because quite honestly, with a constant steep grade of between 40 and 68 percent, I was afraid of falling backwards!
Well, here, let me show you what we saw…
This is an extreme trail! Never in my life would I have anticipated that I would face such a warning before hiking a trail that I chose to do on purpose!
These are the beginning steps of a total of 2,744.
Still very early on in our trek, these steps are surprisingly steep. Little did I know that they would be my favorite steps of the day!
But then we turned around and the views became real treasures.
You just can’t see views like this very easily or very often. The horizon, paired with the rising smoke from the power plant (far right), not to mention the sun, made it quite special.
Oh yea, for every view that we awed, we continued higher and higher and higher up the side of the mountain. I am a certain believer in the elevation gain of 2,100 feet. And, by the way, I shook the hand of a man in his 50s or early 60s who passed us twice up and twice down. He was on his 330th Incline hike this summer alone. His goal is to reach 500 times before the summer sun sets. His grown-up daughters fear for his well being, he explained, so he promised them he’d cut back from four times a day to two times a day! What??!!?!
Meanwhile, we continued trekking up and over these old wooden railroad beams and exposed rebar. 
There is a false summit about 200 feet from the real one. This is the view of the actual summit from the pretend one. So close, I know, but really, still quite far.
But then we did it!! We made it to the top of the Manitou Incline in just less than three hours! What an amazing thing!! I was so proud of my mom. She knew she wanted this achievement and she went for it. Our theme for the hike was in celebration of good health and what a very powerful way to embrace that theme. The three of us made an excellent team and together we were truly a testament to the importance of family, love, compassion, motivation and desire. Despite the sad fact that we are only together just a couple times each year, hiking this hike together helped me to know that we remain a tight unit and are there for one another…even at 8,600 feet!
What a sight to behold!
Woohoo!
And then, as if the reward of our own accomplishment wasn’t prize enough, when we arrived home, sweaty, weary, tired, but excited, this was what we walked into! The DZ boys used their time in the morning while we were gone to create victory signs for us! Those DZ boys….
We were even awarded Winner gold medals and certificates of Awesomeness with the Star Wars theme song playing in the background! Now that’s awesomeness if I ever knew it! 
I was completely humbled to be presented such an honor from the President and two V.P.s of Awesomeness!
I will never, ever forget that day. My mom and sister and I made a very special memory and I realize how important memories like that are. I’m so grateful for them; for the opportunity to hike together; for my legs; for my boys (all three of them); and the view of the Incline from the front window of my house, in fact. It’s true! I never noticed it until a few days before the hike. But, as clear as the sky is from the top, I can see it all the way from down here!
Jen, this was one of the most inspiring stories I have seen written about the Incline. I am on the non-profit board responsible for raising funds to secure and stabilize the Incline. We have submitted applications for $550,000 in grants and need $200,000 in matching grants. That is what we need to raise. You might ask why so much? We have had engineers look at it and in order to NOT change it’s character (keep the steps uneven, narrow, rocky, etc.) the stabilization process is VERY complicated which means it is also VERY expensive. But, we know that the Incline is so very much worth it! Any help you can give us to help let folks know that we are doing this would be greatly appreciated! Donations can be given at Inclinefriends.com.
Oh, and welcome to the Incline “club”! You and your sister and your mother are definitely members having reached the top successfully! Thank you,
Sandi