Look up from the little town of Manitou Springs, and you’ll see a long, straight line running up the side of the mountain. It’s the Manitou Incline, one of the hardest and most famous hikes in Colorado. The Incline has about 2,744 steps. It climbs about 2,000 feet in less than one mile, and some parts are so steep that hikers use their hands to climb.
The Incline was not built for hikers. In 1907, workers built a cable railway up the mountain to carry pipes and building materials. They were building a hydroelectric power plant and a water pipeline for Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs. Two cars were tied to one long cable. When one car went up, the other car came down.
When the work was finished, Dr. Newton Brumback turned the railway into a tourist ride. Ads promised a 16-minute ride to amazing views and called it the longest and highest incline in the world. At the top, visitors could walk on 10 miles of trails in Mount Manitou Park. In 1923, Spencer Penrose, the businessman who built the Broadmoor hotel, bought the Incline and gave the cars roofs that could open. Here is a funny fact: the Incline doesn’t actually climb Mount Manitou! It goes up its neighbor, Rocky Mountain. It got its name from Mount Manitou Park, the area at the top.
In 1990, a rockslide damaged the tracks. The owners decided not to fix them, and the Incline closed down. Workers took down the station at the top, but they left the old wooden railroad ties in the ground to hold the soil in place. Soon people started to climb the ties for exercise. It was private land, so climbing it was against the law, but many people climbed it anyway.
After many years of meetings, and even a law passed by Congress, the Incline opened legally on February 1, 2013. In 2020, it closed for a few months during the COVID-19 pandemic. When it opened up again, hikers needed a free reservation. Today tens of thousands of people climb it every year, and most of them need one to two hours. Every hundredth step has a metal number, so climbers can see how far they have come. Near the top, there is a “false summit.” Many climbers tell themselves they are almost done, but about 300 steps are still left!
At the top, the view of Colorado Springs and the plains is wonderful. If you climb the Incline, don’t walk down the steps. Take the Barr Trail, about three miles, back to town. People who live in Manitou Springs climb it again and again, and some say it changed their lives. Many say they never feel more alive than at the top. If you push yourself to the top, you’ll be proud of yourself. If you could climb the Incline next week, would you do it?