DID YOU KNOW? The Royal Gorge Bridge in Canon City, Colorado, was the world’s tallest suspension bridge from 1929 to 2003. At 955 feet tall, it remains the tallest bridge in the United States with two towers, 150ft and 110ft in height. 80 men built the bridge in only 7 months, and 1292 boards pave the way for traffic to cross the deep Royal Gorge. Unfortunately, in 2013, around 90% of the park was destroyed in a wildfire, resulting in the closure and rebuilding of the park. Surprisingly though, only 100 boards of the bridge had to be replaced after the fire.
Our time at the Royal Gorge was short and, quite honestly, proved to be a bit of a
letdown. Compared to the Grand Canyon, the Gorge wasn’t nearly as impressive, and the
bridge itself was slightly boring to look at for me. We’ve seen several neat bridges during our
travels, including a few old covered-bridges out on the east coast a few summers ago, so while
the height was certainly taller than any of the others, it just didn’t seem to measure up to the
touristy-hype and the admission fee.
We walked across the bridge, some of us confidently enjoying the view down into the
gorge while certain others of us walked carefully down the middle. After snapping a picture at
the Iowa plaque on the bridge, the littles and Mom hung out at the children’s play space while
the rest of us rode the Gondola across the gorge a couple times. It was pretty cool, and didn’t
feel scary at all.
Honestly, I think the best part of visiting the bridge was watching and listening to people zipline across the deep gorge. None of our family chose to zipline, since the cost was $40 for a 40 second ride, but it was fun to see others taking the rapid trip across.
Another adrenaline-producing ride they offered was the Sky Coaster, which attaches up
to 3 people to a long cable and swings them out over the Gorge in a near free-fall. Listening to
the screams of those who rode this was especially amusing. It was another ride that I would
have loved to try, but again, the cost wasn’t worth the amount of time the ride took.
(Interesting how priorities change when you hit young adulthood and have to pay your own
way instead of relying on parental funds. Lol…)
So, our trip to the Royal Gorge Bridge ended pretty quickly…which allowed us to begin
driving to Colorado Springs, where one of the most enjoyable evenings of our trip awaited
us…we just didn’t know it yet. But that’ll have to wait until the next post :)
Until next time, God bless!
No thank you to all of the above