Garden of the Gods

Garden of the Gods is a popular hiking destination for both tourists and locals in Colorado Springs. It offers beautiful views and has basic to moderate hiking trails for avid hikers and casual family outings. Along with hiking, you can bike, rock climb, and do many other exciting activities.

Difficulty

Garden of the Gods offers diverse levels of intensity for their trails. The Central Garden Trails are paved for ease of use and accessibility. Along these trails you will be able to see the Garden of the Gods most well known rock formations, including Kissing Camels (also known as North Gateway Rock), Balanced Rock, and the Three Graces. This is a great place to take the family; it is wheelchair and stroller accessible, offers rock formations children can play on, and has great views that are beautifully Instagram-able. The paved path forms a loop that stretches just over a mile.

For those wanting trails more challenging, there are 15 miles of trails in Garden of the Gods. Some popular trails include Palmer Trail, Ute Trail and Balancing Rock Trail. Palmer Trail swings around the back half of Garden of Gods and offers a beautiful view of the park. You can take Palmer Trail down Bretag Trail and end up in Ute. Taking this hike will end up being just over 3 miles and will circle most of the park. Balancing Rock Trail is one of the shorter hikes that takes you by Balancing Rock. Balancing Rock is one of the more famous rock formations at Garden of the Gods, and is a popular spot for pictures while offering a lot of fun rocks to boulder on.

For a map of all the trails click here

Location

Garden of the Gods is situated very close to Manitou Springs. Though Garden of the Gods is predominantly known for its hiking, there is a road that goes throughout the park just for sightseeing as well; one of which spits you out into the outskirts of Manitou. Manitou offers unique shops, great places to eat, and most importantly the Penny Arcade! If you are wanting to get a bite to eat, I recommend Hell’s Kitchen Pizza or The Loop for an post-hike snack.

Is it Busy?

Since Garden of the Gods is one of the more well known tourist destinations in Colorado Springs it is often very crowded with both locals and tourists. If you aren’t a people person, I recommend going near dusk or early in the morning and to steer clear from the paved paths in the central portion of the park.

Maintenance

Garden of Gods is very well maintained, with the paved and unpaved trails being well kept. The more common trails also have trash cans placed around the grounds for visitors.

Aesthetic

Garden of the Gods is absolutely breathtaking. Its size and stature are unparalleled. The magnitude cannot be captured even with a day's worth of pictures. Even if you're short on time you can stop by and just walk around for 30 minutes and it will be well worth it. There is a reason these rocks are said to be fit for the gods.

Dog Friendly

Garden of the Gods is very dog friendly. They have doggie waste bags around the grounds for visitors and their pets with trash cans to throw the poop away in. They do still require that dogs stay on a leash.

Family Friendliness

This park is very family friendly. It has paved paths for strollers and wheelchairs and offers a lot of rocks for kids to climb on and explore. The park also offers some historic sites for educational purposes as well.

Mountain Biking

The park offers bike lanes on all the roads throughout the grounds. Bikes are allowed on some of the trails as well, but since some of the trails can be very busy, I recommend using caution and looking into which trails are bike accessible before going. Click here for a biking trail map.

Rock Climbing

Rock climbing is both allowed and encouraged at Garden of the Gods. All climbers must fill out a free registration form before climbing in Garden of the Gods though. Click here for more information about registration and climbing at Garden of the Gods

Other

Along with the activities listed above there are a ton of other things you can explore as well. You can schedule a segway, Jeep, or trolley tour through the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center. Garden of the Gods also has designated horse trails. To schedule horseback rides you must go through the Academy Riding Stables. You can also go on a free guided tour of the park provided by the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center. The Garden of the Gods Visitor center has events almost every day. To find a list of upcoming events click here.