Monday, June 4, 2012
Cheri-4-12
11:13 PM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
This morning we headed for The Royal Gorge Bridge & Park located 12 miles west of Canon City off of HWY 50.
We had been to the bridge some 20 years ago. Wow, how it has changed. They have created a park on either side of the bridge.
It was a beautiful sunny day and only a few people in the park. The lines for activities were short, just the way we like it! It cost us $22 each to get into the park and that paid for everything you wanted to do in the park except for the Soaring Eagle Zip Line and the Royal Rush Skycoaster. There was an extra charge for them.
As soon as we entered the gate we spotted the Incline Railway and decided to hop aboard. It is one of the world’s steepest incline railways. We go down 1,550 at a 45 degree angle. It travels about 3MPH and takes 5 ½ minutes to reach the bottom. It is 7 or 8 small cages all hooked together. There was room for 4 or 5 people to stand up in them. Once at the bottom, you can walk out on the platforms about 4 or 5 ft above the Arkansas River. You look straight up and see the Royal Gorge Bridge stretched across the canyon. On the other side of the river you can see the remains of the old wooden water pipe that use to service the area. The steep canyon walls were all granite. It was a beautiful area.
We got our pictures and hopped back aboard the Railway for the trip back to the top.
The bridge across the gorge is something to see. It is 956 ft. high and one of the world’s highest suspension bridges. They started building it in June of 1929 and completed it in Nov. of 1929. It is 1,270 ft long and 18 ft wide. The towers of the bridge are 150 ft high and there is 2,100 strands of No 9 galvanized wire in each cable. The cables weigh 300 tons. There is 1,000 tons of steel in the floor of the bridge and that is covered with 1,270 blanks for the deck. The original cost to build it was $350,000—todays cost would be $18 million.
You can drive across, walk across or take a trolley or golf cart across the bridge. We decided on the trolley. As we crossed the bridge the planks all clattered under us. It gave you a weird feeling.
Our trolley driver gave us a tour of all the attractions and we decided to hop off at the wildlife park to get pictures of the Rocky Mountain Elk, the Bison and the Big Horn Sheep. You’ll notice the White Bison. They are trying to breed an entire herd of White Bison. We have never seen White Bison before.
We checked out the old Mountain Man Trading Post & Town. They had a gunfight scheduled for 1pm, so we stayed and watched that. We also had to check out all the rest of the buildings in that little settlement.
The Plaza Theater had a little Magic Show. It gave us a chance to sit down and relax a bit. We also saw a video there on how this area was developed and when the bridge was built.
Lunch time had come and gone and we were in need of food. We picked Cliff Terrace BBQ. It was very good.
It was time now to stroll back across the bridge. The views to the bottom were spectacular. They had a flag flying from the bridge for every state. We could see the rafters floating along the river. The river flowing between the canyon walls made for some beautiful scenery.
Now it was time for the Aerial Tram across the gorge. It is one of the world’s longest single-span Aerial Trams. The length is 2,200 ft. It hovers 1,178 ft over the Arkansas River. It was built in 1968 at a cost of $350,000. It will hold 35 passengers. We stepped aboard and there we hung, high over the gorge. Wow! More great pictures. It only took about 5 minutes to cross and we hopped off and we headed down to pick up the trolley and once again cross back over the bridge.
I had to ride the carousel and Gay had to ride the little Silver Rock Train around its mile long track and then we headed to pick up the car and yes, you guessed it, drive back across the bridge. There is a back exit to the park that took us through the countryside and out onto HWY 50 headed for home.
We ran into a couple of rain storms with high winds. That happened at the end of our day, so we can say all in all we had a great day.
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. Click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels then click on album: Royal Gorge
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