Everyone who visits Colorado Springs is bombarded with “Have you visited Garden of the Gods?” It is a park of towering red and white stones located on the west side of Colorado Springs. There are pictures of visitors to this area in the 1800s in wagons. This year in 2020, we have updated bathrooms (do you detect the theme of finding potties everywhere)?
Because the summer brings many tourists normally to Garden of the Gods (GOG), the locals never go there because of the crowds. This year, the crowds are thin, the social distancing signs remind us to keep away, and we needed a close hike in the time frame we had. We found a hidden gem – even after twenty years living here.
Miles of Trails 
Main entrance 
Most trails
In 1871, General William Jackson Palmer founded Colorado Springs while extending the lines of his Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. In 1879, General Palmer repeatedly urged his friend, Charles Elliott Perkins, the head of the Burlington Railroad, to establish a home in the Garden of the Gods and to build his railroad from Chicago to Colorado Springs.
Perkins died in 1907 before he made arrangements for the land to become a public park, although it had been open to the public for years. In 1909, Perkins’ children, knowing their father’s feeling for the Garden of the Gods, conveyed his four-hundred eighty acres to the City of Colorado Springs.
While exploring nearby locations, {two surveyors} came upon a beautiful area of sandstone formations. M. S. Beach, who related this incident, suggested that it would be a “capital place for a beer garden” when the country grew up.
His companion, Rufus Cable, a “young and poetic man”, exclaimed, “Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the Gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods.” It has been so called ever since. Source: GardenoftheGods.com
South GOG with Pikes Peak 
The touristy area
We drove to High Point to the south side of the park, away from the touristy main area. In the COTREX free hiking trail app, there were two trails that surrounded two reservoirs. I have never even heard of reservoirs in the Park so I was intrigued.
We climbed the hill from the parking area and saw the famous rocks from a different and glowing angle in the early morning sun. The reservoir area was dry and gave way to a green lush meadow. The moon was setting above the red rocks that frame Pikes Peak.
Reservoir and Park 
To the West 
Crossing the Reservoir
You shall not make other gods besides Me; gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves. Exodus 20:23 NASB
There were only two people besides us on the single track trail. White rocks were set vertically on the side of the trail. The view to the south to Red Rocks Canyon of Colorado Springs showed how the geography must have looked before houses and roads were built. Stay cation – new old things – a backyard treasure….
Red Rocks Park 
High Point Parking 
White Vertical Rocks
When have you seen things from a new perspective? Where can you go in your home town to see things again?