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Like many of the planet’s marvels that can’t survive outside their native habitat, the Pikes Peak Summit House donuts can only really be consumed at the summit of Pikes Peak. They are the only donuts produced at an altitude above 14,000 feet anywhere in the world. Made hot and fresh each day by a donut robot that spits out some 700 donuts per hour-that's more than 6,000 per day, seven days a week-they cost just $1.29 apiece, though it’s rare to see anyone get just one. The donuts are almost everyone’s first order of business the moment they summit Pikes Peak, even more so if they hiked there. The Pikes Peak Summit House is a National Historic Landmark, the natural endpoint of various hiking trails up the mountain, and the continued production site of what have become, over the last century, cult-favorite donuts. Pikes Peak is many things: the highest peak in the whole eastern half of the US the inspiration for “America the Beautiful” possibly the most cherished fourteener in the country. Today, more than 750,000 people head up Pikes Peak each year, making it one of the most-visited mountaintops anywhere in the world. The mayor of Manitou Springs was correct about this. That could have been the end of things for the decommissioned building, but the mayor of Manitou Springs, a city whose main street led to the base of the mountain, thought it might be a good idea to use it to sell coffee and donuts to tourists. Helen H.In 1888, the US Army abandoned what was until then a weather station at the top of Pikes Peak, which, at 14,115 feet, is the highest peak in the Colorado Front Range. Conductors David Bolser, left, and Adam Clawson, right, check the time on their pocket watches as they helps get passengers aboard The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway train in May 2021. But that awe-inspiring experience, it's all the same," Johnston said. "The experience of going to the summit of a 14,000-foot mountain by rail has not changed. Three years later, the railroad is reopened, all year, in any weather conditions. Their rarity forced Colorado engineers to look overseas for help in Switzerland's Stadler Rail, whose trains traverse the alps. Three new trains and a snowblower ready to tackle the hardiest of conditions were also recently added.Īs train transportation has modernized, cog railways and their parts have become few and far between.
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The tracks were replaced for the first time since they were laid down. And we retrofitted some of our older equipment," Johnston said. The track, the trains, the depot facility that we're at right now. "We looked at everything when we did this project. In 2018, it was shut down for renovations totaling more than $100 million. But much of the railway's infrastructure remained in place for more than 125 years. "We believe that the Broadmoor is kind of the gateway to the American West," said Jack Damioli, president and CEO at The Broadmoor.Īs the years passed, the trains' technology evolved with 20th-century innovation. The nearby Broadmoor hotel owns the railway today. The cog railway was a groundbreaking system when it was constructed in 1891, as saloons dominated the local landscape.
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Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway train heads towards the summit of Pikes Peak. A typical railway, they get all their traction and braking through the outside rails," Ted Johnston, assistant general manager of Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway, said. "A cog railway is a railway just like any other railway, but we use a center third rail to get all our traction and braking.