Not only is the ride up Pike’s Peak a wonderful sensation and a constant reminder of the triumphs of engineering, but it is also a source of continual delight to the lover of the beautiful and awful in nature.  About half way up the mountain is a most delightful little hillside retreat, aptly named “The Half-Way House.”  It is a very comfortable establishment within rustic walls.  The pines and firs which surround it add a great charm to the outlook, and the cool mountain breeze is charged with very pleasing odors.  Tourists frequently spend a night here and consider the sensation one of the most unique of a long trip.

A tourist describing a ride up Pike’s Peak by this singular railroad, says: 

“We are now far above timber line.  On all sides can be seen strange flowers, of lovely forms and varied hues.  Plants which attain considerable proportions on the plains are here reduced to their lowest forms.  It is not an unusual thing to find a sunflower stalk in the prairies rising from a height of eight to ten feet; here they grow like dandelions in the grass, yet retaining all their characteristics of form and color.  Beyond this mountain meadow are great fields of disintegrated granite, broken cubes of pink rock, so vast in extent that they might well be the ruins of all the ancient cities in the world.  Far below flash the waters of Lake Morain, and beyond, to the southward, lie the Seven Lakes.  Another turn of the track to the northward, and the shining rails stretch almost straight up what appears to be an inaccessible wall of almost peerless granite.  But no physical obstruction is formidable enough to stop the progress of this marvelous railway; and passing the yawning abyss of the ‘Crater,’ the line proceeds direct to the summit.  The grade here is one of 25 per cent., and timid passengers will not escape a thrill of fear as they gaze over the brink of this precipice, although the danger is absolutely nothing.  At last the summit is reached, and, disembarking, the tourists can seek refreshments in the hotel, which will cater to their wants, and then spend the time before the train returns in enjoying the view, and in rambling over the seventy acres of broken granite which form the summit.

“The view from the Peak, once beheld, can never be forgotten.  The first sensation is that of complete isolation.  The silence is profound.  The clouds are below us, and noiselessly break in foaming billows against the faces of the beetling cliffs.  Occasionally the silence is broken by the deep roll of thunder from the depths beneath, as though the voice of the Creator were uttering a stern edict of destruction.  The storm rises, the mists envelop us, there is a rush of wind, a rattle of hail, and we seek refuge in the hotel.