The Pikes Peak Donut

The drive up Pikes Peak is astounding and well worth it. The donuts on top are supposed to be just as incredible.

Pikes Peak, outside of Colorado Springs, is an impressive mountain. It rises to an elevation of 14,115 feet where the air is cold and thin.

It’s a bone chilling drive up, and down, the mountain with no guard rails. Some find their ultimate thrill in life by road racing up and down this mountain, and then there are those, some who I call good friends, who find their joy in running a marathon to the top of this peak. I don’t understand that kind of crazy.

However, there is one thing you can get at the top of Pikes Peak that is found nowhere else in the world - the Pikes Peak donut.

If you understand the atmospheric structure, it acts like a sponge with heavy air pressure near the ground at sea level, and as altitude increases the air pressure decreases. The oxygen content decreases as the altitude increases, and that’s why it’s hard to breath the higher you go. In fact, humans need oxygen supplement generally above 10,000 feet and certainly above 15,000 feet.

The shop on top of Pikes Peak makes donuts at 14,115 feet. Donuts that are made in light air pressure, if taken down the mountain, will not retain their same look and texture as the altitude decreases and the air pressure increases. So that was the goal of the day - to eat a Pikes Peak donut.

I guess we’ll have to make the trip again.