Pike's peak?/Though overshadowed by Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike's

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 7, 2000 | by Deb Acord

Pike wasn't looking for a recreational hike. Instead, he continually searched for a vantage point from which he could map the land beneath him. "The guy was always climbing," Murphy says. "He climbed a mountain by Caon City, he climbed one of the sub-summits along the Upper Arkansas, he built his fort at the bottom of a hill that he always had his men climb for a better view. He wanted to see what was out there. That's what drove him to climb."

The men built a breastwork of logs 5 feet high alongside the water, and on Nov. 24, Pike and three men - Dr. John Robinson, a volunteer surgeon, and Privates Theodore Miller and John Brown set out for the mountain.

"Nov. 25: We marched at one o'clock, with an idea of arriving at the foot of the mountain, but found ourselves obliged to take up our night's lodging under a single cedar which we found in the prairie, without water and extremely cold."

Slow progress

Still, the men remained optimistic. They thought the elusive peak was much closer than it really was, and they got up early on Nov. 26.

"Marched early, with an expectation of ascending the mountain, but was only able to encamp at its base after passing over many small hills covered with cedars and pitch pines."

The group expected to reach the summit and return to camp the same evening, so they left their blankets and a newly slaughtered deer, and headed up.

"We commenced ascending; found it very difficult, being obliged to climb up rocks, sometimes almost perpendicular; and after marching all day we encamped in a cave, without blankets, victuals or water. We had a fine, clear sky, while it was snowing at the bottom."

The men had started their climb. It was a day that Murphy says, "is the biggest day in American mountaineering."

The four struggled on, and about an hour after they began climbing, on Nov. 27, they "arrived at the highest of this chain," Pike wrote. It was indeed a summit - the four stood well above treeline, and remarked at the dearth of birds and animals - but not the summit of Pike's curiosity.

That mountain still stood in front of them, in plain view. Obviously vexed at his inability to judge the distance of mountains, Pike wrote: "The summit of the Grand Peak, which was entirely bare of vegetation and covered with snow, now appeared at the distance of 15 or 16 miles from us. It was as high again as what we had ascended, and it would have taken a whole day's march to arrive at its base, when I believe no human being could have ascended to its pinical (sic)."

Pike was a risk-taker, but he knew his men, dressed in "light overalls, with no stockings" weren't equipped to continue on this particular day, so they descended and headed back, arriving in their camp on Nov. 29.

The men would remain in the region until February, but they would never return to the "blue mountain."

Tracking Pike's route

Nearly 200 years later, Murphy did return, again and again. After pouring over topographic maps and reading and re-reading Pike's journal, he determined what he thought was Pike's route, and set out to prove himself right, by arranging a hike to the summit of Mount Rosa from the spot where he believed Pike built his base camp.