Manitou Adventure

An outing with Abby is always an adventure, but this hike would turn out more adventurous than either of us had counted on! I had read about the old Manitou railway hike on www.localhikes.com (of course) and wanted to hike it as soon as possible! The trail was unique in that it lead you through 6 tunnels that were carved out of the mountain almost 200 years ago for a railroad. While the railroad is long gone, the tunnels and the trail still remain, and it sounded like a good time to me! Abby agreed, and we met up in the early afternoon and set off on our Manitou Railway adventure!

Here we are up the trail; which starts just behind a guardrail on highway 24, west of Manitou and near Waldo Canyon.
For the first half mile or so, the trail winds along above the highway.

The rock ledges and cliffs are quite lovely on the way up the trail. :)

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the first of the tunnels appears in the rock wall. Of course Abby and I both immediately scramble for our cameras. :)

The first 3 tunnels are pretty short, and you're able to see light immediately. The fourth tunnel is longer and requires a good flashlight to navigate safely. The tunnels were fun and full of echoes, old fire pits, and lots of surprises along the way.

One of the shorter tunnels.
The views coming out of the tunnels were amazing! Especially exiting the first tunnel, it was like entering another world! You hear the traffic from the highway behind you, but as soon as you emerge from the first tunnel all you hear is nature an all you see is beautiful cliffsides!

The third tunnel leads almost immediately into the fourth and darkest tunnel on the trail.

The longest tunnel lead into pitch blackness. Eerie, isn't it? :)

But we eventually found the light at the end of the tunnel. *snicker*

We did leave the trail at one point to explore another side trail we found, and we ended up being trespassers. Whoops! :) But we eventually found our way back to the trail and back into the tunnels.

The last tunnel was neat because it still had the original wooden support beams that the trains would have passed through.

The website did warn that the trail ended halfway through this tunnel when you reached a cinder block gate. Beyond the gate was private property, and you weren't supposed to pass it.

There was quite a surprise waiting for Abby and I at the gate, however, and I must admit it made us feel right at home. :)

Needs some work, but it could be a great location? Haha. We laughed hard when we found this!

Knowing Abby's love for trespassing (just kidding, friend! ;) ), I wasn't surprised when she passed through the gate anyway and headed up the tunnel for a few more feet. There were a lot of interesting things to be found in the dark tunnel, ancient bath tubs, this old fashioned cement mixer/pourer...

Lots of interesting things. But the real adventure started when we turned around and made our way out of the trail and back to my car.

The website I find my hiking trails on is great for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite things about it is that it allows for anonymous reviews of every hike. It's nice to be able to read what all the hikers that went before you had to say about the experience. They leave great tips about easy ways to follow the trail, what conditions to expect, landmarks not to miss, and in the case of this trail, dangerous places to watch out for on the trail. I had read on review that warned of an area that had been seriously washed out and had left little to no path. It was only a very small part of the trail, maybe about a five foot patch. I recognized it as the place I'd read about as soon as Abby and I came across it the first time. The trail was almost completely washed vertical in one area, and the entire cliffside was made of nothing but perilously slippery gravel pieces. The shelf we were hiking on was pretty darn steep in that area, and falling off of the trail would leave you sliding down gravel covered side of the mountain for probably a good 200 feet before the ground would stop you, and by then you'd be sliced to ribbons by all the tiny granite gravel pieces and tree roots you'd hit on the way down, not to mention bones that would probably break when you finally hit level ground.

All around, not a good scenario.

We managed a clean crossing on the way in, me being much more nervous about it than Abby (as usual ;) ), but it was a different story on the way out. As soon as we came around the curve in the trail and saw the washed out part of the trail ahead, I slowed down and said: "Uh-oh, here's the part I don't like again."

No sooner had these words left my mouth than the gravel shifted out from under Abby's feet, and down the side of the cliff she went. I was stunned for a second, and stood paralyzed as I watched Abby fall and begin to slide down the side of the mountain. I'm pretty sure I yelled her name, and all I remember Abby doing is putting her feet out to try and slow herself, and yelling "Catch me, catch me, catch me!"

Which is exactly what I did. I saw a tree root sticking out of the side of the cliff next to me, grabbed it with one hand while I slid down the sharp gravel to catch Abby with my other hand. Thank goodness for that tree root, because without it I have do doubt Abby and I both would have taken off down the slippery cliffside. There was almost no way to gain any kind of purchase in the gravel, but I dug y shoes in as best I could and clung to the tree root as Abby began to pull herself back up by the arm I was clinging to.

Now, you'd think this sounded like a pretty desperate situation, right? I suppose it was, but all Abby and I could do was laugh as we tried to fight our way back up onto a solid footing. At one point I actually had to say "Stop laughing! You can't pull yourself up if you're laughing!" Which is true, since for some unknown scientific reason, you lose all strength in your muscles when you go into a laughing fit.

Anyway, she pulled herself to safety, and using the root, I pulled MYself to safety, and then we proceeded to hang onto an outcropping of shrubbery and laugh until we couldn't laugh anymore. After getting a hold of ourselves and removing ourselves from the dangerous area, we finally lost the adrenaline and giggles, and began to take stock of ourselves. Abby's arms were pretty cut up, and I looked down to discover blood dripping down my leg. None of this was surprising considering the sharp gravel we'd both taken a dive it, and I affectionately named it my "Indiana Jones wound" since I felt like an action movie hero for those few moments when I had reached out and snagged Abby's arm.

She even took a picture of it. This blog is privy to more wounds than it should be.

Well, after that ending to our Manitou Railroad trail adventure, Abby wasn't super keen to continue adventuring like we'd planned. I was going to take her to Ute Falls, or Graffiti falls. You should recognize that name from an earlier blog. Abby'd never seen the falls, and I'd never been behind the falls, so we'd planned to see it after finishing the tunnel trail. It was a warm day, so I thought it would be fun to walk into the stream and see the cave behind the falls.

Being the hardcore girl that she is, Abby put aside her near death experience and we made our way up to the falls.

Remember how amazing the falls are from in front?

Well they are a MILLION times cooler from INSIDE!

The water was a little cold, as mountain streams are made mostly from snow melt from the peaks, but it felt wonderful after two hikes, and it was so much fun to see the 'inner workings' of the falls! The cave under the falls is quite large, and full of other tiny waterfalls and interesting rock formations. The water from the main falls is falling HARD and FAST, and hurts if you get caught under it, but there is a big enough opening close to the cave walls that you can sneak by without getting pummeled by thousands of gallons of falling water.

The experience behind the falls filled our adventurous spirits back up and we were both happy that we'd gone, despite our already trying day. :)

This lion on the wall of the falls represents Abby's courage and determination to adventure through adversity (and the tiredness of pregnancy! ;) ). She's an awesome hiking partner and I'll take her on every trail I can get her on before her due date looms too closely! :)

Hope you're all having a wonderful week! Stay tuned, more to come!