Royal Gorge Takes Our Breath Away

Candy: Wow. The Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River took our breath away today. Literally.

First we took the Royal Gorge Route Railroad. It was kind of boring, but it was a nice two-hour train ride through the gorge. This photo shows what the Royal Gorge Bridge looked like from sea level. The little blob near the top of the picture is the Royal Gorge Aerial Tram, alleged to be the longest aerial tram in the world.

Here's the train and the river as it appeared from our seats in the first class car.

After our return to the depot in Canon City (should be a tilde over the "n" in Canon--pronounced Canyon) we drove up to the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, about 10 miles west of Canon City.

Here's what the highest suspension bridge in the world looks like from the verandah outside the gift shop at the park. It's 1,053 feet above the river and 1/4 of a mile long. When I took this picture Tim and I were about to board the aerial tram.

I'm not normally afraid of heights, but I have to admit that the thought of riding the tram across the (really deep) gorge took even my breath away. As you can see from the picture above, Tim isn't completely comfortable standing that close to the edge yet either.

Here's a photo of the tram up close.

Here's what the bridge looks like from the tram while hanging over the center of the gorge.

We then walked around the other side of the park and saw some buffalo, including a rare, white American bison. There were three baby buffaloes, one of which had just been born minutes before we saw it. Its little wobbly legs barely held it up.

We also saw elk and some bighorn sheep. I took a photo of this guy because his horns were so curved and because he looked like he was chewing on a piece of straw like a country bumpkin.

After we passed the western wildlife, we saw the Skycoaster and heard lots of screaming coming from that general direction. When we arrived at the base of the ride, we saw three people strapped into harnesses and being pulled up by a cable to the top of a pole.

A ride worker on the ground yelled "Three. Two. One. Fly!" and one of the people strapped in pulled a ripcord which released them from the cable. They free-fell for about 2 seconds before swinging forward out over the gorge, then back and forth until they lost momentum and returned to the ride platform. No way I would do that. No way.

Here's what the ride looks like as seen from the bridge. The little dot in front of the tower is the person on the ride. Scary.

We then proceeded to the bridge itself, and began to walk across it. Tim was a little freaked out, but he went right up to the side several times and even enjoyed it. The bridge platform itself is comprised of eight-inch-wide planks and many of them look to be really old. They're uneven, also, and there are gaps between them, which makes it a little more scary to walk across because you can see the river waaaaaaaaay down below.

Here's the bridge from one end.

It was a lot of fun and we stopped several times in the middle of the bridge to feel it sway in the wind.

Finally, we rode the steepest incline train in the world down to the river (I know, a lot of world's biggest, longest, steepest for one day). It runs at a 45-degree angle for 1550 feet down to the banks of the Arkansas River. Each way takes about five and a half minutes. Here's a photo of one of the trains (there were two--one red and one blue) before we boarded to ride it back to the top.

On the way out of the park, I saw some redwood pieces lying near where one side of the bridge's cables attach to the mountain. Here's a composition that caught my eye.

It was a great day. It was warm (in the low 80s) with blue skies and occasional puffy white clouds and intermittent gray rain clouds.

Tim will be flying back to Ohio tomorrow to pick up a few urgent things from our storage unit, and returning to Denver on Wednesday. If you want to connect with him on Tuesday, call his cell phone. I'm sure he'd love to see you.

Chase is healing well and will return to the vet for his final visit on Wednesday as well.

I hope you have a good Monday and that all the moms out there enjoy a great week leading up to Mother's Day.