Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge + Bighorn Sheep

We had a short drive today from Garden of the Gods RV Resort in Colorado Springs to the KOA (Cañon City) near the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge. We had a great site. WOW–our internet speeds here were incredible!! We’re making the most of it this afternoon and evening!

Amazing how fast the weather changes up here. From a beautiful sunny afternoon to storm clouds that produced rain, a rainbow, then some hail!

July 18 – We went to experience the Royal Gorge Bridge this morning.

ROYAL GORGE RAILROAD WARS
From April 19, 1878 to February 2, 1880, the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe and the Denver & Rio Grande railroads fought the greatest railroad war in American history. The prize was the lucrative mineral-rich mines of the Leadville area and future Western expansion. The challenge was the narrow Royal Gorge with space for only one set of railroad tracks. Various court judgments swung back and forth in favor of one railroad or the other. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Rio Grande won the right-of-way even though Santa Fe built the railroad through the Royal Gorge. The Rio Grande agreed to pay $1.4 million to Santa Fe for the construction.

A most unusual U.S. Mail route from 1949 – 1988! For almost 40 years Dorthy Arko handled over 1,000 pieces of mail everyday. She made the trip up and down The Incline Railway with the mail sacks.

Yes, those are two workers on the top of the tower of the bridge in the foreground, and a couple on the second tower, too!

FACTS about the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge:

Construction remarkably only took 7 months to complete in 1929.
The bridge deck is 1,260 feet long (main span 880 feet) and 956 feet above the Arkansas River.
Designed to hold 2,000,000 pounds!
4200 steel cables are used.
Towers – 150 feet high.
2,100 strands of No. 9 galvanized wire in each cable.
2 primary suspension cables.
Weight of cables – 300 tons.
1,000 tons of steel in floor of bridge.
1,257 wooden planks make up the deck of the bridge. 250 planks are replaced every year! (whew).
About 100 boards of the 1,257 planks of the bridge were scorched in the 2013 Royal Gorge Fire.
In 2019, the Royal Gorge Bridge was trademarked “America’s Bridge”.
Due to increased popularity of the bridge, driving across was stopped for pedestrian safety in 2013.
Due to Covid-19 made it car only crossing to enforce social distancing.
The bridge is currently back to pedestrian only crossing.

($35 each to walk across the world’s highest suspension bridge, and ride the gondola across the gorge!)

I was here when I was about 17 and my fear of heights was extreme. At that time cars could drive across the bridge. Pedestrians walked along the outer edges of the bridge. Oh – Hell, NO!! Couldn’t walk there. And holding my hand was not the answer. Instead, I walked directly, but slowly down the center of the bridge with eyes focused straight ahead with cars on both sides of me! The walking surface is wooden slats that vibrate/move as vehicles drive across. AND there were significant gaps between many of the slats which added to my anxiety! I’m pretty sure drivers could tell I was petrified. LOL I did MUCH better today!!!

Checking out the views prior to crossing the bridge:

**The “Grand Canyon” of the Arkansas River**

I DID it! – I stepped out little by little onto this observation platform that protrudes out AWAY from the solid ground. The first two steps were the hardest. I held on and made it out to the end! I had no idea Barry was taking pictures as I went. I can see how even at the end, I had a “cautious” stance while taking a few pictures.

Barry while videoing me caught another lady about to come out, but immediately, had a “f-no” reaction. I totally get it!

Views from this observation platform:

The cables for this bridge are impressive. 4200 cables! And there are 2100 strands of No. 9 galvanized wire inside each cable! There are two main suspension cables.

On the Bridge Pictures:

Conquering my fears! Halfway across and at the edge!

(Now back towards the middle to keep going! LOL)

I still didn’t like coming across the wider gaps between planks like this. They really throw you off when you’re going along, then you notice the space. You could easily lose a phone through them.

The Arkansas River flows through the Gorge. The Rio Grande railroad runs parallel along the river. (zoom in below to see the railroad)

The Arkansas River is the 6th longest river in America. The upper Arkansas River offers some of the best rainbow and brown trout fishing from Leadville through Canon City. It is considered Gold Medal Fishing with up to 5,000 trout PER MILE and 80 miles of public access!

Commercial, world-class white-water rafting through the Royal Gorge began in the 1970s.

State & Republic Flags are displayed along the bridge.

We walked up the road. They had misters all the way up the hill. Nice!

WOW– To our right are bighorn sheep!! (They evidently returned today after being gone for a few weeks. Great timing!) There were a few in the shade of the trees and resting. It is amazing how well camouflaged they were with the rocks and dry grass. These two came closer and had a ball running up and down the hill by me. They were a hoot to watch!

Then this raptor entered the scene for my attention.

As much as we (especially me) enjoyed watching the bighorn sheep and the raptor(s), we needed to move on. After all, this was just to be a stop before we headed on to our next destination today.

There’s much more to this side of the bridge than we expected. There’s a nice green park area, a theater, food, a zipline across the Gorge, gondolas, and a sky coaster…

…and another herd of bighorn sheep that we almost didn’t notice.

The Royal Rush Skycoaster – a free fall swing.

Zip-line – When we were purchasing our tickets last night, we considered the add-on of the zip-line. We read that the line can be really long, so we felt we could better spend that $$ elsewhere, but now that we are here and see it–and that there’s NOT a line this early, it’s like, “dang, why didn’t we go ahead and do this experience!?” But we’d have to go back to the parking lot side, buy the tickets and then come back across in this heat and elevation. We did the gondola ride back across and called it good. It’s been a GREAT morning!

The Gorge Aerial GONDOLA.
Wow–no line to go from the south rim to the north (parking lot side). But after we got on–in the front gondola, many others arrived, so we ended up with four more in our gondola.