Skyline Drive (Cañon City) – In A Colorado Minute (Week 303)

Cañon City’s Skyline Drive is a must-see sight during a visit to the Royal Gorge area in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Skyline Drive is a scenic one-way road that follows the narrow crest of hogbacks (steep ridge of hills), allowing for great views of Cañon City and the Arkansas River Valley. The added thrill: the tight road goes up and down and through several sharp turns with the valley floor a few hundred feet below.

Skyline Drive is conveniently located off US-50 between the town of Cañon City and the main attractions of the area, the Royal Gorge, carved by the Arkansas River, and the Royal Gorge Bridge, which until 2001 was the highest suspension bridge in the world. Just like the bridge, Skyline Drive was created as a local and tourist attraction. It was built around 1905 by prison inmates. Initially intended for horse and carriage traffic only, it was soon open to motorcars as well.

If all that wasn’t enough, Skyline Drive features dinosaur tracks that can be found in the rocks on the side of the road. Because this road trip (with Scott and Miriam) was rather spontaneous, I didn’t realize until I was doing research for this post, where exactly the imprints of the tracks are. So while, they do show up on the side of our ride’s footage, I didn’t get a a very clear picture featuring them. The spontaneous nature of this excursion and shoot also explains why I had to film through a dirty window. Sorry about that.

The speed limit on the road is actually 15 mph – so this time-lapse is at 450%.

This video only shows the ride from the top of the ridge. Very shortly, I will publish another longer and slower video that will let you see the whole drive and a few views from the main stopping point.

The song in this video is “Swarm The Hill” by Jason Matherne of Goonygoogoo Productions. Thank you, Jason, for making all your great music available for videos!

MIN 303_Skyline Drive_s

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