Garden of the Gods, Royal Gorge & Pikes Peak

A free public park containing 300-foot vertical sandstone fins rising from the valley floor with Pikes Peak's 14,115-foot profile directly behind — one of the most visually dramatic landscapes in Colorado. The Fountain Formation red sandstone was horizontal seafloor 300 million years ago and now stands on end due to tectonic uplift along the Rampart Range fault. The 2-mile Main Loop Trail passes through the main formations including Balanced Rock, the Three Graces, and the Kissing Camels. The park is always free and open; the Visitor & Nature Center has geological exhibits.

A Victorian spa town at the base of Pikes Peak — established in the 1870s when eight natural carbonated mineral springs were promoted as health treatments. The springs still flow from ornate Victorian drinking fountains throughout downtown; the water varies by mineral content from iron-heavy to almost sulfurous. Manitou Avenue's compact commercial strip has independent restaurants, bookstores, crystal shops, and the Manitou Springs Heritage Center. The town retains its late-19th-century character with minimal chain retail.

Authentic Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings relocated from the Mesa Verde area in the early 1900s by an entrepreneur who wanted to preserve them from destruction by land development — an unusual preservation story. The dwellings are built into a constructed red sandstone alcove above Manitou Springs; the museum covers the cultures of the Four Corners region. The relocation makes them archaeologically problematic but allows visitors to walk through the rooms at close range without the crowds of Mesa Verde.

A 1918 Italian Renaissance resort at the base of Cheyenne Mountain — one of the finest historic resort hotels in the American West, with 784 rooms, 5 restaurants, and a lake between two hotel wings. The property has hosted seven US presidents. Tomorrow's drive to Royal Gorge is 45 minutes west on US-50. Alternatively, The Mining Exchange (downtown Colorado Springs, 1902 building) or the Cheyenne Mountain Resort are reasonable alternatives at lower price points.

A 1929 suspension bridge spanning the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River — 956 feet above the water, the world's highest suspension bridge from its construction until 2003. The bridge deck is 1,260 feet long and 18 feet wide; walking it gives views straight down the granite walls of the gorge to the Arkansas River below. The gorge was carved by the river over the past 3 million years through Precambrian granite that was 1.8 billion years old when the cutting started. The park includes an aerial gondola across the gorge and an incline railway to the gorge bottom.

Cañon City's late-Victorian commercial district centers on Main Street — a tree-lined streetscape with intact 1880s-1890s commercial fronts built during the railroad competition that culminated in the Royal Gorge War of 1878-79, when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the Denver & Rio Grande railroads physically fought for the right-of-way through the gorge. The Municipal Museum covers the local history; Tunnel Drive (a 2-mile bike/walk path through several hand-carved railroad tunnels in the gorge walls) is one of the most unusual urban trail experiences in Colorado.

A 2-mile paved trail through three hand-carved railroad tunnels in the Royal Gorge walls — the tunnels were cut in 1877 for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and now serve as pedestrian and cycling path. The trail follows the Arkansas River through the mouth of the gorge; the granite walls narrow above the trail as you enter the canyon. The access point is from the Tunnel Drive parking area on the north side of the Arkansas River west of downtown Cañon City.

The Broadmoor Pikes Peak Cog Railway has operated since 1891 — departing from Manitou Springs at 6,571 feet and ascending 9 miles to the Pikes Peak Summit House at 14,115 feet, the highest cog railroad in the United States. The 2-hour round trip passes through distinct ecological zones (montane, subalpine, alpine tundra) and ends at a summit with views spanning Kansas, New Mexico, and 150 miles in every direction. On clear days, Denver's city grid is visible 65 miles north. The summit house has a café famous for its high-altitude donuts (a different recipe required at 14,115 feet). Book tickets weeks in advance.

A 181-foot waterfall cascading down seven distinct drops in a narrow granite box canyon — the canyon walls rise 1,250 feet on both sides, narrowing to 40 feet at the canyon entrance. An elevator at the base rises 224 feet to an observation platform above the falls; the Eagle's Nest platform above is accessible via 224 steps from the elevator landing. South Cheyenne Canyon's pink Pikes Peak granite walls are among the most geologically distinctive outcrops in the Colorado Springs area.

The free adjacent canyon park north of Seven Falls — a city park with a trailhead network accessing the Cheyenne Mountain backcountry. Helen Hunt Falls (named for the 19th-century writer who wrote A Century of Dishonor documenting the US government's treatment of Native Americans) is a 30-foot waterfall accessible via a 0.5-mile trail. The Mt. Cutler Trail (3.0 miles RT from the park road) gives views over Colorado Springs with a 900-foot gain.