Pikes Peak Highway: Guided Scenic Tour with Summit House

4.93

(138 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We started winding up the Pikes Peak Highway just after a light drizzle—enough to make the air smell sharp and earthy. Our guide, Mark (he’s lived in Colorado Springs forever), kept pointing out things I’d never have noticed: a hawk circling above the reservoir, patches of snow still clinging to shadowy corners in July. He handed around snacks—somehow trail mix tastes better when you’re watching clouds drift below you. I kept craning my neck at every turn, trying to spot that first full view of the mountain across Crystal Creek Reservoir. It’s bigger than it looks in photos, you know?

Mark told us to watch for Bigfoot near one of the stops—there’s actually a sign about it, which made everyone laugh (especially when he offered to take our “Bigfoot sighting” photo). The van felt roomy enough that nobody was elbowing for space, which I appreciated more than I thought I would on a four-hour tour. We stopped at Glen Cove Inn—a ski lodge turned rest area—and I swear the coffee there tasted somehow stronger at altitude. There were little plaques about local wildlife; I read about pikas while my partner tried to spot marmots out by the brake check station.

The last stretch got steep and twisty—Devil’s Playground is a weird name until you see those rocks all jumbled like someone dropped them from above. At one point Mark just let us sit quietly as we looked out over the Bottomless Pit (it’s not bottomless but it does make your stomach drop). The wind up top was colder than expected; my ears stung for a minute before we ducked into Summit House. Those high-altitude doughnuts? Still warm, almost cake-like inside—I ate two without thinking. You can see clear into Kansas if it’s not hazy. I still think about how small everything looked from 14,115 feet up.