The little town of Manitou Springs is roughly half-way up the side of Pike’s Peak, and is the point of departure for the Pike’s Peak Railway. It reminded me of the town of Blue Ridge, Georgia, north of Ellijay, home of the Blue Ridge Railway, which makes a relatively short run up to McCaysville, GA/Copper Hill, TN: A small mountain town whose economy is based on the railway that uses it as its home base: Lots of small shops, restaurants, motels, etc.

All dependent on the traffic the railway brings.

I forget the exact numbers, but Manitou Springs is at something like 8,000 feet above sea level; while the top of Pike’s Peak is maybe some 14,000 feet high. The interesting thing to me, as we slowly ascended, was the gradual disappearance of both flora and fauna as we climbed (plants and animals both), and also the increasingly smaller sizes of the rocks on either side of the tracks. That part was a surprise.

The tour guide in our train car explained it thusly: She said that, at the higher altitudes, when the temperature dropped below freezing point, it froze the moisture that had seeped into the cracks of the bigger rocks; and when the moisture froze, it both hardened and expanded as it turned into ice. (Water expands as it freezes; a fact many homeowners experience when they forget to drip their pipes before a hard freeze warning,) When the ice expanded, it pushed against the cracks in the rocks, causing them to fracture and then split into smaller pieces. As the rocks broke into smaller pieces, and the process repeated, the resulting pieces simply got smaller and smaller.

Which explains why the larger rocks at lower levels turned into smaller rocks at higher levels! Perfectly logical, once understood.

Once we reached the top of Pike’s Peak, I was struck by the desolation around us. Other than the Visitor’s Center/train depot, there was nothing else there. I don’t even remember seeing any birds in the air, that high up. The visitor’s center had bathrooms, a small souvenir shop, and a small café, where one could get a hamburger or hot dog, chips and a coke, as I recall, but not much else.

We only had 45 minutes before the train we came on went back down to Manitou Springs, so most folks didn’t tarry. I don’t remember getting any souvenirs there, just mostly looking out the observation deck, using the bathroom, and getting ready to go back down.

Still, a very interesting place to visit, and I would not have missed it for the world! One of America’s most historic places, and I can say, “I have been there!”

It was hard to imagine those hardy souls who attempted to climb that mountain in the late 1800’s, with only pack mules for transportation, and whatever food they carried with them for sustenance. That would have been a very hard trip, particularly if they got caught in a snowstorm, which I am sure many did. And many surely died from the rigors of the trip.

I imagine most of the folks who traveled west during that time, in search of “fame and fortune,” or maybe just a new life, would have been sorely disappointed. Some of them would certainly have packed up and gone back home, if they could have.

The ones who stayed, and tried to build a life in a new home, certainly faced challenges they never expected, when they left their lives and homes “back east.”

Our American History is built upon many such movements, over the years. It is hard for us, today, to understand what life was like, back then. That is why the study of history is so important. Particularly when it comes directly from the mouths (writings) of those who lived it.

Properly interpreting those historical records, however, is often more difficult than it seems.

We owe an enormous debt to those who came before us, and worked, unknowingly, through their efforts to simply survive and make a life, which give subsequent generations a chance at a (hopefully) better life.

Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He and his wife live in eastern Liberty County, and are long-time Rotarians. He writes on a variety of topics, and may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo.com.