Pikes Peak Summit House Expected To See Upgrades In the Near Future

It looks like the Pikes Peak Summit House may be seeing an upgrade in the near future:

Climbing Pikes Peak is sublime. Whether by road or trail or train, the way clambers up and up through ancient forests until the pines break on a wind-driven tundra. Still the climb goes on, above the clouds, along the jagged crests of billion-year-old granite, past trotting herds of bighorn sheep, through gardens of tiny alpine flowers as tough as time.

It is the jewel of our region.

Then you get to the summit. And it’s … crappy.

Literally. A persistent sewer leak in the 1970s melted the permafrost, causing the summit house to slowly sink into the ground. It’s now held up by jacks. The summit’s observation deck – a popular spot for weddings – is also the roof of the septic system, and as one city report, noted, putting it mildly, “can often have an obnoxious odor.”

Most of the mountaintop is dominated by a parking lot. On good days the prime parking spot is occupied by a garbage truck. On bad days, there is also a sewage truck.

The summit house, a squat, plain structure built in 1964 – not a high point in American architecture – has almost no windows despite its 360-degree views. The ceilings leak. The foundation is failing. It is so structurally suspect that in the past it has been condemned.

“It looks like a cross between the single nastiest roadside gift shop you can imagine and the Fuhrer’s bunker,” said John Hazlehurst, a former City Council member who has pushed for decades for improvements. “Pikes Peak is America’s mountain but we treat it like America’s junkyard.”

Scattered around the summit are even uglier metal structures erected by the Army and Colorado Springs Utilities that prompted one visitor on Yelp.com, echoing many, to post, “The view of natural splendor at the top is spoiled by crappy buildings that to me made the top look like the back alley of a strip mall. Whose great idea was that?”  [Out There Colorado]

You can read the rest at the link, but I like to call visiting the summit of Pikes Peak a surreal experience because of the hordes of people up there and the party like atmosphere.  The article is right though that there is sometimes the smell of sewage when visiting the Summit House area and as the below picture shows there is the garbage truck:

You can view my photos from the summit of Pikes Peak at the below link:

• On Walkabout On: Pikes Peak via the Devil’s Playground Trail

So there is a lot that can be done to improve the summit because the Summit House is basically just a place to peddle food and souvenirs to tourists, not a place to learn more about the mountain’s history and importance to the city.  Hopefully something is done to improve the experience visitors have on the summit because as it is right now it can only improve.