02-May-2024 The Manitou Incline

I did it! Today I challenged myself to climb up the Manitou Incline: it’s a former cog railway line that has been converted into a hiking/stair master workout . It’s 0.9 miles straight up and has a total of 2,768 steps. Difficulty level is listed as “extreme”. A many-time local climber describes it as “a pilgrimage of pain and pleasure”. Once I found out about it I just had to do it!

It starts out looking like the picture above and is not particularly steep but it gets steeper and steeper as you go ascend and on the last third of the climb most steps are 2 railroad ties high and close together so that you are literally bear crawling up. Couple that with the altitude and there is quite a bit of time spent just standing there sucking wind. The base elevation is 6,530 feet with a summit elevation of 8,550 feet and an average grade of 41%. The steepest grade is 68%. Thats over 2000 feet of elevation gain and then there is a 3 mile trail that zigzags back down to the base.

I couldn’t have had a nicer day. Temperature was about 60°, bluebird skies and a slight breeze with temperatures dropping and breeze increasing a with elevation which was just perfect, as the higher I got the more cooling I needed! The ascent took me 1 hour 40 minutes - my slowest mile ever! I actually hiked a trail a little further up to see if I could get some views of Pikes Peak off in the distance. Then it was another couple hours down the Barr Trail thru pine trees back to the base.

The town of Manitou is about a half mile down the road from the base of the incline. It’s a super cute little touristy town with lots of shops and restaurants - and I treated myself to a celebration cappuccino before heading back to Boulder. Ahhhhh!