Day 8 - Royal Gorge

Bottom of the gorge.

After leaving the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, we drove to the Royal Gorge just West of Canon City, Colorado.  The park surrounds a large portion of the gorge and includes a bridge, incline railway, cable car and more.  One admission covers all so don't panic at the price - you get your money's worth.

 We started our afternoon with a 1000+ foot decent to the bottom of the gorge on the incline railway.  The Arkansas River is at the bottom of the canyon and is only about 50 feet wide there.  The river shares the canyon bottom with a standard gauge railroad track that has quite a history itself including a "War" between the Santa Fe and D&RG for rights to run track there during the Pike's Peak gold rush. 

View from cable car


Back up the railway and then on to the swaying ride on the cable car almost 1/4 mile above the canyon floor.  The car is the original (comforting?) and it travels about 5mph crossing the canyon in about 5 minutes.  We enjoyed the ride but if you are subject to motion sickness, you probably ought to walk across.

After leaving the cable car, we opted to walk down to the wildlife pens where bison, elk and bighorn sheep are easily viewed. 

Bighorn sheep

This was quite a treat for us as these large animals are difficult to see in the wild.  See more pictures at the photo album link below.  We went on to view the Skycopter and walked back across the bridge to the visitor center where they were closing for the day so we drove to Pueblo to spend the night
tired but pleased with our first day on the road home.

Royal Gorge Photo Album

Video from the bottom of the gorge.

Video on the bridge.