Sunday, March 2, 2025

Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs


A Beautiful view of 14,107-foot (4,299.83 m) Pikes Peak from the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.



 As I have written in my past few blog posts, my best friend Rosemary visited us last March from Brooklyn, New York, and we spent a few days showing her our favorite Colorado sites. We went to Red Rocks Amphitheaterand walked along giant red rocks onto its stage, drove along the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway through canyons and mountain valleys, spent an afternoon admiring the beautiful snow-covered mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park, and on our last day together we drove down to visit the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.


As Garden of the Gods is a National Natural Landmark and is one of our favorite places to visit I have blogged about it many times, as you can read in sequence on this blog tab. We always begin with a visit to the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center to enjoy its interesting exhibits.


The "Kissing Camels" Formation

We drove around the 1,367 acres of the park to admire the outstanding geologic features of the park. There are magnificent ancient sedimentary beds of deep red, pink, and white sandstone, conglomerates, and limestones that were deposited horizontally but have now been tilted vertically by the immense mountain-building forces caused by the uplift of the Rocky Mountains and Pikes Peak massif. You can read about the history of the park on this link.











This is a photo of Rosemary and me at the Balanced Rock formation, which is at 6,286 feet (1915.9 M) elevation in the park. Doesn't it look like the rock could topple over at any minute? It is a favorite photo spot for all visitors.



A close-up


There are so many beautiful rock formations in the park


We enjoyed stopping to admire many views during our visit.



Please click on the photo above to enlarge it in order to read the placard.

We stopped briefly in the nearby town of Manitou Springs to show Rosemary the iconic mineral springs.



Please click on the photo above to enlarge it to read the placard--March is Women's History Month!

Manitou Springs is an interesting and historical town--I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago which you can read here.

It was time to drive back to our town where we were going out to a goodbye dinner with Rosemary as she was flying back home the next morning. We wanted to show her so much more, but it will have to wait until her next visit which will hopefully happen very soon!


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