This Colorado town guards sacred springs and America’s most punishing public staircase

It’s Pikes Peak’s weirdest neighbor

Four miles west of Colorado Springs, a town of about 4,858 people sits 2,000 feet higher than the city below it.

Manitou Springs has no chain stores, no corporate restaurants, and no interest in being anything other than itself.

The locals keep the place independent on purpose, and their unofficial motto says it all: “Keep Manitou Weird.”

You’ll find galleries and murals along Manitou Avenue, a castle with nine styles of architecture, and a staircase so steep it draws Olympic athletes.

But the story starts underground, with water that takes thousands of years to reach the surface.

Sacred water drew settlers in 1872

Long before any resort went up, the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people treated these mineral springs as sacred ground. The bubbling water carried a name and a meaning: the breath of the Great Spirit Manitou.

In 1872, General William Jackson Palmer and Dr. William Abraham Bell founded the town as a health resort around those same springs.

By the 1890s, seven grand hotels lined the streets. Visitors came from around the world to drink the water. Bottlers shipped it across the country.

Eight springs you can taste for free

Today, eight mineral springs flow along the town’s main corridor, and every one of them tastes different.

Rainwater and snowmelt from Pikes Peak seep into deep rock fractures, pick up heat and minerals over thousands of years, then rise back to the surface naturally carbonated and free of industrial contamination.

The all-volunteer Mineral Springs Foundation has maintained them since 1987. You can grab a free map and sampling cup at the Manitou Springs Visitor Center and walk from spring to spring at your own pace.

Climb 2,744 steps at a 68 percent grade

The Manitou Incline gains over 2,000 vertical feet in less than a mile, and you do it on roughly 2,744 railroad-tie steps.

The average grade sits at 45 percent, with sections hitting 68 percent. Originally, this was a cable car railway built in 1907 to support a hydroelectric plant on Pikes Peak.

A rockslide shut it down in 1990, and crews pulled up the rails but left the ties. Those ties became the staircase you climb today. You’ll need a free reservation, and the round trip takes about two to three hours.

A false summit tricks tired hikers every time

Everyone from weekend hikers to military personnel from nearby bases lines up for the Incline. About two-thirds of the way up, a bailout trail connects to Barr Trail if your legs say no.

Near the top, a false summit fools just about everybody. You think you’ve made it, then you look up and count about 300 more steps.

Once you reach the real top, you come down via Barr Trail, a scenic three-mile path back to the base. A free shuttle runs from downtown to the trailhead.

Ride the world’s highest cog railway to 14,115 feet

The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway has been carrying passengers to the summit since 1891, and it holds the title of the highest cog railroad in the world.

The round trip covers nine miles and takes about three hours. You’ll roll through pine forests, pass waterfalls, and break above the treeline.

Keep your eyes open for bighorn sheep, elk, deer, and yellow-bellied marmots along the way. At the top, 14,115 feet up, you can see the Great Plains, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and the Continental Divide.

Flickering candles led to a 70-million-year-old cave

In 1880, two brothers noticed their candles flickering near a crevice in Williams Canyon.

Behind that crevice sat a limestone cave system that started forming about 70 million years ago when ancient seas pulled back from the region.

Cave of the Winds opened to the public in 1881, making it one of Colorado’s oldest attractions. The Lantern Tour goes deeper, 90 minutes through unimproved caverns by lantern light.

The family-friendly Discovery Tour walks you through 15 lit rooms over 45 to 60 minutes, past stalactites, stalagmites, and rare crystalline formations called helictites.

Launch off a 200-foot cliff at 100 mph

Above the cave, Cave of the Winds Mountain Park puts you on the rim of Williams Canyon with a different kind of experience.

The Terror-dactyl launches riders 150 feet into the canyon at close to 100 miles per hour from the edge of a 200-foot cliff.

If that sounds like too much, the Wind Walker Challenge Course is a three-story obstacle course sitting over a 600-foot drop.

Two zip lines covering more than a quarter mile and a via ferrata canyon tour round things out. Down in the cave, the temperature holds at a constant 54 degrees year-round, so bring a light jacket.

A priest built a castle with nine architectural styles

In 1895, Father Jean Baptiste Francolon, a French-born Catholic priest, built Miramont Castle as a home for himself and his mother.

The 14,000-square-foot structure mixes nine architectural styles, from English Tudor to Byzantine to Moorish, all using locally quarried greenstone.

Inside, you’ll find over 30 rooms, including eight-sided rooms, a 16-sided room, and a sunlit solarium. The Manitou Springs Historical Society bought the castle in 1975 and opened it as a museum.

Some arcade games still cost a penny

The Manitou Springs Penny Arcade has been running for more than 90 years in the heart of downtown, stretching across an entire city block through several historic buildings.

Hundreds of machines fill the space, from antique penny games and vintage pinball to 1980s favorites like Pac-Man and Galaga.

A 12-player mechanical horse derby has been a crowd favorite for decades, and about 80 coin-operated kiddie rides sit outside.

Some games still run on a penny, a nickel, or a dime. You won’t find that anywhere else.

Walk through 800-year-old Puebloan stonework

The Manitou Cliff Dwellings opened to the public in 1907, built from original Ancestral Puebloan stones relocated from collapsed dwellings near McElmo Canyon in southwest Colorado.

Crews moved them to protect the stonework from vandals. The material dates back 800 to 1,000 years, to the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived across the Four Corners region.

You can walk through the rooms, climb ladders, and crawl through doorways to feel the scale of the ancient spaces. A three-story Pueblo-style museum building holds pottery, tools, weapons, and cultural displays.

Explore Manitou Springs, Colorado

You’ll find Manitou Springs about four miles west of Colorado Springs along U.S. Highway 24, roughly 75 miles south of Denver. Garden of the Gods, a free public park with towering red rock formations, sits just minutes away.

Summer highs average around 85 degrees, and winter often brings mild, sunny days in the 50s and 60s. Free shuttles run through downtown, connecting you to the Incline trailhead and Cog Railway depot.

With over 30 locally owned restaurants within three miles, the walkable downtown gives you plenty of spots to refuel after a full day.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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