Incline

So, I hiked the infamous trail in Manitou this afternoon. It used to be a cog-style railroad famous for being the steepest section of train tracks in the known universe. I rode it a time or two as a kid, and remember the cold feeling I got in my chest when we had to go back down and I realized that, if the cable broke, we'd plummet straight down into hell. The railroad stopped operating in 1990, when a rock slide mercifully took out the tracks. Click here if you want the full story, or pictures.

Now used strictly for hiking by insane and sadistic people, it is a near-vertical scree slope crisscrossed with railroad ties, exposed rebar, and open drainage pipes begging to give you a justifiable reason for another a tetanus shot. It takes you, at the top, 2000 feet higher in elevation than you were when you started, in less than a mile, at grades of up to 68%. (Most staircases are about 35-40%.) Among locals it is known simply as "The Incline", which is, in my humble opinion, a gentle and benign description meant to lure you quietly to your hypoxic demise. It's more like "Steep-ass-suffer-fest-with-a-bunch-of-shit-you-could-hurt-yourself-on" trail, and you have to pay $5 just to park at the bottom. There is even a row of port-a-potties lining the trailhead in case you look at it before you start walking, in which case your insides will instantly turn into water.

For those of you who are deathly afraid of heights, it really is best if you just keep moving forward (or, up, as it were) and don't look behind you, lest you are able to take in the incredible vista that stretches across the city all the way to Kansas. But don't look up, either, because that's just as bad--maybe worse--unless your brain is already so deprived of oxygen that you notice the 3-inch lizards scampering out of your clumsy path to take refuge under a rock, or hear the whistling buzz of hummingbirds pulling you up one more step. If you look--really look--up, you can even see the false summit which looks for all the world like the top until you are two steps below it. At that moment, it is not uncommon to hear people curse their very existence as you pass them, especially when they are young, fit, Army Rangers, and you are a middle-aged mother of three who keeps a little extra padding around the hips in case there is a famine. (Granted: they were from sea level Georgia, and I live here.)

If you make it to the top (and you will, because once you pass the halfway point, going down is certain death for your knees and ankles) you appreciate all the work that has gone into making that trail fit for foot traffic. The railroad ties have been reinforced in many places, and you can see where a zillion feet have worn gently curving groves in them. There are rough wooden bridges over the sharpest drainage pipes, and strategically placed rocks as extra steps for us vertically challenged types. There are even places where you can stop to slosh a gulp of water into your face in hopes that some of it will make it to your mouth, and you can hope for two seconds that the apocalypse would come RIGHT NOW to end this torture.

But, you keep moving, because there might be a cold beer at the bottom (plan ahead!) and chances are high that the deranged person who passed you at a trot a few minutes ago will be at the top with a high-five. They might even offer to take a real picture to save you, in your state of duress, from taking a selfie.

My time was 46 minutes. And I didn't even cry.