Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
|Elevation:||14,110 ft (4,300 m)|
|Latitude:||38° 50′ 25.92″ N|
|Longitude:||105° 02′ 39.14″ W|
|Topo map:||USGS Pikes Peak|
|Age of rock:||~ 1.1 Gyr|
|First ascent:||1820 by Stephen Long and party|
Pikes Peak (formerly Pike's Peak, see below) is a mountain in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is named for Zebulon Pike, an explorer who led an expedition to the southern Colorado area in 1806. It is one of the 54 peaks in Colorado whose summits are taller than 14,000 feet (known as "fourteeners"). It is not the tallest, however; that distinction falls to Mount Elbert (14,440 feet (4401 m))
Much of the fame of Pikes Peak is due to its location near the eastern edge of the Rockies. Unlike most other similarly tall mountains in Colorado, it serves as a visible landmark for many miles to the east, far into the Great Plains. Driving south on Interstate 25 from the city of Fort Collins, it comes into view over a hundred and thirty miles away. It is notable for its imposing appearance both from the east (167Kb image) and from the west (179Kb image).
In July 1860, Clark, Gruber & Co. began minting gold coins in Denver bearing the phrase "Pikes Peak Gold" and an artist's rendering of the peak on the obverse. As the artist had never actually seen the peak, it looks nothing like it. In 1864 the US Government purchased the minting equipment to open their own mint.
Pikes Peak is home to an annual hillclimb, made famous worldwide by a short film featuring Ari Vatanen driving his Peugeot up the steep, twisty slopes of the summit road. Tourists may also take a cog railway, the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway, up to the top of the mountain.
Originally the peak was called "Pike's Peak", but in 1891, the newly-formed US Board on Geographic Names recommended against the use of apostrophes in names, so officially the name of the peak does not include an apostrophe. In addition, in 1978 the Colorado state legislature passed a law mandating the use of "Pikes Peak" only. Even so, the old name is still often seen.
Pikes Peak is made of a characteristic pink granite, called Pikes peak granite . The pink color is due to a large amount of potassium feldspar. The granite was formed by an igneous intrusion in the Pre-Cambrian age, approximately 1.1 billion years ago, during the Granville orogeny .
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