Garden of the Gods: Visitor & Nature Center

Sunday, 14 June 2015
Peregrine Pines FamCamp; USAFA, Colorado Springs — Colorado
Temps: Hi 75F (24C) / Lo 46F (8C)

Made a mistake today.  Well, sort of a mistake.  You see, instead of hiking one of the trails here on the grounds of USAFA, we went to the Garden of the Gods (GotG) — a registered national natural landmark since 1971.

We went to a free park!  On a Sunday!  In the summer … when schools are out!  What were we thinking?  Apparently, we weren’t — thinking, that is.  To boot, when we arrived at the GotG V&NC, we found a long line of vehicles queued up along 30th Street, and a barrier and a police car blocking the entrance into the park.  What the heck?

Turns out there was a marathon being run through the park.  “The road will be open by 10:00a,” the helpful lady at the V&NC said when I stopped by the desk to pick up a map.  Hmmm.  In the next breath, she told us we could walk-in if we wanted to.  Sure we could, but what about all the other visitors that were walking in … baby strollers and all.  Not to mention the busload of school kids, and another one of Boy Scouts, that were being offloaded to hike the trails?

We asked ourselves … “Should we just leave and return another day?”  Nah!  Since the V&NC wasn’t crowded, we decided to stay and check out the exhibits, do a short hike walk near the entrance, and leave the hiking trails in the park for another day.

Entering the V&NC through the ground floor, we’re greeted by a pair of bison on the prairie.

Red sandstone rocks … green clad mountains as a backdrop … and Pikes Peak looming over it all.  It all adds up to a spectacular setting that makes GotG such a special place — a place that at one time hosted American Indian people, as well as explorers, miners, and early settlers from Europe.

The Garden of the Gods marked a crossroads for many; became home to others.

The story goes that two surveyors who helped to establish Colorado City stumbled upon the site in 1859.  One of them suggested the place would make a “capital beer garden.”  His companion, a young man named Rufus Cable, disagreed.  Bowled over by the beauty that surrounded them, he’s said to have exclaimed: “Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods.”  Twenty years later, the lands he so decreed were purchased by Charles Elliott Perkins.  He never built on the land; and before his death, he made it known to his heirs that he wished that the GotG be given to the city of Colorado Springs on the condition that it “remain forever free to all the people of the world.”

The 480 acres owned by the Perkins family were conveyed to the city of Colorado
Springs on the condition that: “… It would be known forever as the Garden of the Gods.
… where it shall remain free to the public, where no intoxicating liquors shall be
manufactured, sold, or dispensed, where no building or structure shall be erected except
those necessary to properly care for, protect, and maintain the area as a public park.”

We spent the first part of our visit exploring the interactive exhibits on the main floor, stopping to view the very short introductory film running on a loop.

A beautifully executed display of some of the wildlife found in the area.

In one corner, a small exhibit introduces visitors to the people and history of the area.

Replica of Theiophytalia kerri — the only known fossil of which was discovered in the GotG.
The name of the dinosaur comes from Greek and breaks down as follows: theios = belonging
to the gods; phytalia = garden.  “Kerri” is in honor of Professor Kerr, who discovered
the fossil remains in 1878.  The story of the find is quite interesting.

Next we went out on the terrace that overlooks the park.  In addition to taking a ‘postcard’ or two, we spent awhile just enjoying the beautiful day and the wonderful scenery.  I like it when there are signs that identify the various landmarks our eyes are viewing, so I spent a few minutes checking those out as well.

In the background, the peak on the left is Cameron Peak (10,707 feet / 3,265 m); the
snow frosted peak is Pikes Peak (14,115 feet / 4,302 m) … the Pikes Peak Road follows the
ridgeline that continues to the right; in front of Pikes Peak is the Manitou Springs Incline.

The formations in the foreground (L to R): the Gray Rock; South Gateway Rock;
and North Gateway Rock.  If you can’t make out the Kissing Camels on the latter,
don’t worry … I’ll get a photo of it when we return to hike around GotG.

To the right of the GotG, when facing it from the terrace, is Queens Canyon and Queens Canyon
Quarry ("The Scar"), the latter being the green space on the mountain in the center of the photo.

At this point, we decided to take a break from the V&NC and go for a walk on the Foothills Trail.  This is an easy, paved path that runs just inside the park, parallel to 30th Street.  Perhaps not the best trail in the park, but it had the distinction of being nearly deserted … and good enough for some exercise.  Turns out that those who were walking the trail were not heeding the prominently displayed warning signs that the path was closed.  The section of the trail heading towards and around the Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site was open, however, so we headed in that direction.  The Ranch was closed today, so we didn’t stop to explore this time; we’ll return when it’s open and do a guided tour.

Mothers Church — an interdenominational sanctuary for meditation.
It is situated at the end of the Foothills Trail.

Have you heard the story of Bloomer Girl?  I knew nothing of this remarkable young woman until I came across signage about her on our way back from the Foothills Trail.

Click the image for the full story … the gist of which follows: This young woman from Kansas is said to be the first Anglo woman to summit Pikes Peak.  She did so in July 1858.  She earned the nickname “Bloomer Girl” because “of her choice of clothing — the new “American costume” — no corset, with pants or pantaloons worn beneath a calf- or knee-high skirt.”  Later, in August of the same year, she wrote her mother … ”In all probability I am the first woman who has ever stood upon the summit of this mountain, and gazed upon this wondrous scene which my eyes now behold.  How I sigh for a poet’s power of description, so that I might give you some faint idea of the grandeur and beauty of this scene.”

Back at the V&NC after our walk, we decided to check out the Geological Time Tunnel … a short and narrow hallway with mural-images designed to take visitors through snippets of time.  I’m the first to admit that geology tends to bore me (sorry, Sue) … I get lost in all the details.  But this picture-show I enjoyed, especially since footnotes on the information panels tied the geologic periods to Colorado.

Geological Time Tunnel ... Precambrian Super Eon — The oldest rocks in Colorado formed
just under two billion years ago as continents took shape on the earth’s crust.

Carboniferous Period (300 MYA)	Permian Period (280 MYA)
Permian Period (255 MYA)	Jurassic Period (150 MYA)
Cretaceous Period (100 MYA)	Cretaceous Period (80 MYA)
Cretaceous Period (70 MYA)	Quaternary Period (25,000 YA)

A short lesson in geology … even though there is a big jump from 70 MYA
(million years ago) to 25 thousand years ago when you get to the end.

At the end of the Time Tunnel, we came to the Geo-Trekker, a high-def multimedia attraction the brochure described as “a show millions of years in the making.”  We decided to pay the $6/adult fee — GotG is otherwise an entirely free place to visit — and find out “how did these red rocks get here?”

Welcome to the Geo-Trekker — let’s journey through time to learn about
how GotG became what it is — a spectacular land of interesting formations.

Captain James H. Kerr, taking great pains to make sure we don’t confuse him with
another time-traveling captain — James T. Kirk of Star Trek fame — is about to
take us on a trip through time to learn all about the geology of the area.

Flying through time and space, we see what the land we know as GotG once looked like.

Simply put, the 12-minute high-def adventure was purely for fun.  The educational piece of it was a bit lost in all the flying around and the wormhole effects, I thought.  But I enjoyed it nonetheless.  The show ended with a rendition of America the Beautiful performed by the USAFA Cadet Chorale — appropriate for the glorious beauty of the area.

By this time we were starving — time travel’s not easy, after all;-)  Mui got our packed lunch from the car, we picked up beverages from the V&NC’s café, and made ourselves comfortable at one of the only two tables that were in the shade … after looking around to make sure there were no signs that prohibited us from bringing food from outside.  Turns out there was a sign, but it was blocked by a group of people taking selfies in front of it.  By the time we noticed it, we were already done with our sandwiches.  Oh well — we packed our carrot sticks and cut-up apples and finished our lunch on the 20-minute drive back home.

Lunch with a view … oops, we weren’t supposed to bring food from outside,
but we honestly didn’t know that until we were done eating our sandwiches.

[sorry the colors on the real view are so bad; Mui was trying to get the
reflection in the café’s glass wall to show … he did a good job with that.]

One of the exhibits in the V&NC has a snippet that reads: “The distinctive rock formations of the Garden of the Gods have captivated humans for thousands of years. …”  I know they captivated us.  And I imagine they will continue to captivate others for many thousands of year into the future.

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