Garden of the Gods

After spending some time in Nederland, Colorado, I moved south to the Colorado Springs area. I visited the Garden of the Gods there, which is free and open year-round!

Garden of the Gods

The “Garden of the Gods” refers to a public park just west of downtown Colorado Springs, closer to Manitou Springs. It features HUGE, spectacular rock formations, especially around a central location with a paved loop and a viewing platform. Since it was surveyed in 1859 and made a public park in 1909, visitors have had plenty of time to come up with fanciful names for the rocks, like “kissing camels,” “sleeping giant,” “giant footprints,” and “tower of babel.” Most of these are in what’s called the Central Garden, while a few smaller formations are scattered to the south and west that you can walk or drive to.

It’s all a lot smaller than I had expected. You can drive around the whole thing in under an hour. In fact, I did so and needed to see more, so I got out and walked!

Visitor Center

Start your visit to the Garden of the Gods at the large Visitor Center on 30th street, where you’ll find bathrooms, nature center exhibits, a cafe, a gift shop, and even an immersive theater attraction. The cute Bean Sprouts Cafe serves breakfast and coffee all day, plus sandwiches, soups, pizza, salads, and plenty of snacks and drinks. Make sure to check out the “imaginibbles” children’s menu – it’s super cute.

The theater attraction, called “How Did Those Red Rocks Get There?” is a 15-minute movie that surrounds you as you sit in a sort of time machine-like room. It’s mainly aimed towards kids, and I wish it were more clearly presented than it is. It costs $6 for adults and $4 for kids 5-12, but I’m not sure it’s worth even that price. I think others must agree – there were only two other people in the theater besides me.

Guided Tours

You can rent mountain bikes or e-Bikes from the Visitor Center or take a guided bike, trolly, Segway, or Jeep tour. The cheapest option is the 45-minute 1909 trolly tour, at $20/person. 90-minute Jeep tours range from $50-80, and a 120-minute segway tour (including training time) costs $92. Bike tours are around $100+, depending on your bike, and can range from 1.5-2.5 hours for different itineraries.

Driving

If you have your own bike, car, or feet, you can bike, walk, or drive around the Garden of the Gods for free. One big driving loop around the biggest rock formations is called the Juniper Loop. Then there’s another loop down to famous Balanced Rock and Steamboat Rock, where there’s a narrow gap to drive through before you exit the park in Manitou Springs.

Again, it’s not a big park – even if you get out to take pictures, it will take you under an hour to drive both loops, maybe even under 30 minutes for a straight drive-through. Instead, you should get out and hike! It’s a very walkable park, with relatively easy trails and little elevation change. Some trails are even paved.

Parking

There are plenty of places to ditch your car when you’re ready. The Visitor Center has a huge lot where you can park and walk into the Garden of the Gods. The next biggest lot is at the Central Garden Trails, where there are bathrooms under a viewing platform. Otherwise, there are smaller parking lots dotted all around the park at picnic areas and trailheads and conveniently numbered so you can find them easily. A fair amount of roadside parking is available near Steamboat and Balanced Rocks.

Hiking

Altogether, there are 21 miles of hiking trails at Garden of the Gods. Most visitors will stick to the paved 1.5-mile loop inside the base of the largest central formations. But if you venture farther than that, there are rewarding views and formations that you can’t see by car.

I ended up parking at the P14 lot and walking up to the Siamese Twins formation, which forms a natural window to frame Pike’s Peak in the distance. From there, I walked along the Palmer Trail to the Three Graces, then crossed the road to the Central Garden Trails. On the way back, I walked along the Scotsman Trail before rejoining the Palmer Trail back to the Siamese Twins and my car.

You can park at the Visitor Center and walk in on a half-mile straight shot to the Central Garden Trails. That would be about a 2.5-mile round trip on foot.

Suggested Hiking Intierary

Suppose you’re hardy enough and want to make a day of it. In that case, I could see parking at the Visitor Center to have breakfast and look around, then walking the Gateway Trail and the Susan G. Bretag Trail to the start of the Palmer Trail and walking Palmer all the way around the park down to Balanced Rock (taking parts of the Siamese Trail and Cabin Canyon Trail to make it.) If you walk to the Trading Post from here for bathrooms and a snack (or lunch, if you start later), that would be a little shy of 3 miles. (I think – it’s a little hard to tell from the map.) Then you can hike back through the middle on the Strausenback and Scotsman Trails to the Central Garden Trails for the big finale. This plan would get you to every rock formation in the park. Or, in reverse, you could hit the big ones first when you have more energy, then catch all the smaller ones on a walk around the park. Either way, by the time you get back to the Visitor Center, you’ll have walked a total of about 6 miles.

Trading Post

The Trading Post is a historic 1929 pueblo-style shop and cafe. It’s technically just outside the boundaries of the park (but then, so is the Visitor Center.) There’s an extensive retail area inside, bathrooms, a cafe with award-winning bison burgers, and pretty outdoor seating in the back. I stopped here for a club sandwich after my impromptu hike and it was delicious! And I love that they have horchata in the drink dispenser.

Hours

The Visitor Center is open from 9 am-6 pm between Memorial Day and Labor Day. In the winter months, it’s open 9 am – 5 pm. By contrast, the rest of the park is open from 5 am-10 pm May-October, and 5 am-9 pm November-April.

Trading Post hours are 8 am-8:30 pm in the summer and 9 am-5 pm in the winter. They say to “call for exact spring and fall hours” and are only closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Conclusion

The Garden of the Gods is a world-class attraction. Visitors bus through here on the regular. But it’s not big and it’s free to visit! Even if you don’t have time for an all-day hike, you should definitely at least take the hour to drive around and take pictures. I did a reasonable hike and still had time to do another attraction in Manitou Springs, and this in a town where things shut down around 4-5 pm. If you’re in the area, I definitely recommend visiting Garden of the Gods. It’s unique and spectacular.