AA-2026-F1E964
On the image
Somebody in this car pulled over at a bend in the road specifically to photograph more road, on the theory that a mountain highway folded back on itself enough times becomes a scenic attraction in its own right. The Pikes Peak Highway did exactly that for American tourists in the 1950s, promising them they could drive a private automobile to over fourteen thousand feet and be home in time for dinner, a claim that was true and also somehow never quite believable until you did it.
The switchbacks below stack up like a diagram of the trip itself, each hairpin a small negotiated truce between an internal combustion engine and a grade nature never intended for wheels. A car or two, tiny against the pines and the reddish rock, marks other families making the same pilgrimage at the same unhurried pace, since nobody rushed a mountain road built mostly of nerve and gravel.
The metal post cutting through the foreground is the ordinary evidence of a scenic overlook, the kind with a railing installed less for safety than to give tourists a place to lean while pretending the view didn't unsettle them. It did.
Visually related — by likeness
Switchback Highway Ascent, Pikes Peak, Colorado, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-F1E964. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/switchback-highway-ascent-pikes-peak-colorado-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026F1E964,
title = {Switchback Highway Ascent, Pikes Peak, Colorado, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-F1E964},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/switchback-highway-ascent-pikes-peak-colorado-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Switchback Highway Ascent, Pikes Peak, Colorado, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-F1E964 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/switchback-highway-ascent-pikes-peak-colorado-1950s ER -
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