Manitou Incline Busy Season Has Begun
Although several people hike the Manitou Incline on nice days during the winter and even on nasty days there generally are a few people. I hiked it on a cold, cloudy day a little over a month ago and saw 3 people. Once it gets warm, a lot more people start hiking it.
Two Sundays ago it was sunny and in the 70's. I saw hundreds of people. I did it with my 5 year old so we had lots of people passing us. I did it last Sunday afternoon and parked the farthest I've had to down Ruxton.Along with the warm weather, people have been coming to UltraRob.com looking for information on the Manitou Incline. One thing they are looking is for directions to the Manitou Incline. I think because it crosses private property there aren't many directions to it. The directions I've written to the Manitou Incline are a bit vague for that reason but should be plenty to get you there. Hopefully the access issues will be resolved soon.
Another question people have is how long it takes to hike to the top. On the Incline Club page, Matt Carpenter's fastest time is listed as 18:31. That page doesn't have any new times since 2000 when the No Trespassing sign was put up. According to an article in Sports Illustrated, Mark Fretta has done it in 16:42. I wonder if that's from the bottom or from where the trail from Barr Trail parking lot meets the Incline. My best time from the bottom is 29:30. Last Sunday I did it in 42:30 but that was from the trail from the parking lot. At that pace it's about 4 minutes from the bottom. Of course how long it will take you will depend on your fitness level and how hard you want to push yourself. I've seen quite a few people the last couple weeks that appeared to be on a pace over an hour. The time back down will depend on whether you go back down the Incline or take Barr Trail down.
People also want to know how many steps there are. I'd never thought much about that. 2,000 vertical feet in 1 mile with the steepest grade at 68% tells me all I really need to know. They really aren't steps but old railroad ties and some of them are missing. But in case you want to know, somebody has written numbers on some of the ties. I'm assuming that they are a count of the number of ties. I'm not sure what was done where ties are missing. 2744 is written on the top tie.
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Labels: Colorado Springs, hiking, Manitou Incline
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1 Comments:
My wife and I have lived here in Manitou Springs, up in the Crystal Park community for 4 years. We do most of our hiking up here. We've looked at the Incline every day. We did our first hike up the Incline today. We were in no rush, so we took several stops along the way. We had a great time. The false Summit was a pain in the knees! Thought we had made it only to find we were only 2/3's of the way up. But we continued our trek! Made it to the top in just over an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. Took Barr Trail down and that was so refreshing. Ended the morning with breakfast at Adam's. A perfect Sunday morning!
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