Monday, 19 January 2015

Royal Gorge Bridge, Cañon City, Colorado

On another sunny morning, we headed off to visit the Royal Gorge Bridge in Cañon City.   From Colorado Springs it’s a nice easy drive, through some pretty scenery.
 
The actual bridge is a few miles on the other side of town; Cañon City has 7 jails in the city limits, as we drove towards the bridge we drove past the oldest.
 
Arriving at the bridge, building works were in progress, a fire in June 2013 destroyed most of the complex; luckily the bridge was saved.   We knew the complex had been closed for a while but hadn’t realised why.
 
We thought the entrance fee was quite expensive at $16.00 each, but for that we could walk and drive across the bridge, and who knows what else will be there once the rebuilding works are complete.   The road at the other side of the bridge is still closed, so as we couldn’t drive out that way we decided just to walk across.

Opened in December 1929, Royal Gorge Bridge is over 1,000 ft above the Arkansas River Gorge and is the largest single span suspension bridge in the world. 

There were some amazing views from the bridge.
 
Looking the other way.

The Royal Gorge Train as it follows the Arkansas River under the bridge.
 
State flags line each side of the bridge and as we walked across people were having their photograph taken by their state flag.    The bridge is made of what look like railway sleepers and if a vehicle crosses the bridge as you’re walking across it sort of ripples, it’s a very strange feeling. 
 
The steel cables that hold up the bridge.

In some sections gaps in the sleepers mean that you can see the river far, far, below, quite a scary view.
 
Once we’d walked back across the bridge, we enjoyed coffee and delicious homemade muffins and cookies in the café, it’s a very nice spot and has lovely views of the bridge.
 
On the way back to Colorado Springs we saw signs for Cripple Creek and Victor, I suggested we drive back that way, DB said no, we’ll maybe do that another day, that turned out to be a very good decision.
 
Have fun, we are!

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