Pike

Pike's peak?

Though overshadowed by Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike's expedition framed our future

By Deb Acord/The Gazette, August 7, 2000
Edited and headline by Bob Ehlert

Zebulon Montgomery Pike's mission was straightforward: to further explore the hundreds of square miles acquired by the United States in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. The celebrated 8,000-mile journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark already had pierced its borders. Pike was commissioned to probe deeper into the "Vast Unknown," sorting myths of volcanoes and unicorns from the stiff realities of the Rocky Mountains, especially a big one he called "Grand Mountain."

On Nov. 25, 1806, Lt. Zebulon Pike and three of his men set out to climb a mountain. Until they reached its summit, they thought it was the peak they had spotted more than 100 miles back.

They were wrong.

In the nearly 200 years since that climb, historians have sparred over which mountain Pike, Dr. John Robinson and Privates Theodore Miller and John Brown ascended. Some said it was Grayback, a modest, 9,348-foot peak. Others were sure the evidence pointed to Black Mountain, 10,132 feet, or Blue Mountain, 9,858 feet, to the east of Black. Still others thought Pike had climbed Cheyenne Mountain, 9,565 feet, farther north and west.

They were wrong, believes a Colorado Springs attorney who has been tirelessly researching the climb for years. With the aid of some of Pike's exhaustive journals as their guide, John Patrick Michael Murphy and others believe the group climbed to Mount Rosa's distinctive 11,499-foot summit, located five peaks to the southwest of Pikes Peak.

Murphy, a Colorado Springs native and longtime member of the Colorado Mountain Club, is one of a small group of history buffs and historians who are Pike fans. He believes the climb by Pike and his men was one of the most important facets of his expedition in the American West, even though the explorer never stood on the mountain named for him.

"For nearly the last decade, historians have been discussing which peak was Pike's," Murphy says. "And now, I think, and others do, too, the evidence points to Rosa."

James McChristal, a historian and author of "Pikes Peak: Legends of America's Mountain," believes Murphy is right.

"I think he has a good handle on what happened," he says. "The only way you could ever prove Pike's route without a doubt was if you found a button from a soldier's uniform or something on the ground. That's not going to happen. So John had to rely on his knowledge of the terrain and the timing of different hikes. That's what lends credibility to his research."

Unexplored wilderness

In November 1806, Zebulon Montgomery Pike and a corps of 15 men (his original group of 23 had split into two) began moving across what we know as Colorado. It was an unexplored wilderness - hundreds of square miles of land acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Pike and his men explored the area for months, enduring bitter cold and snow, and sometimes going days without food.

And when Pike left in February 1807, never to return, he left an indelible mark on the area that today is named after him.

To be fair to Pike, mountain climbing wasn't on his official to-do list. After all, many folks back east thought the Rocky Mountains that wove through Colorado were shallow hills. But when Pike spotted the first imposing peak in the distance, he realized they were much more.

"Nov. 15, 1806: At two o'clock in the afternoon, I thought I could distinguish a mountain to our right, which appeared like a small blue cloud; viewed it with my spy glass, and was still more confirmed in my conjecture ... in half an hour they appeared in full view before us. When our small party arrived on the hill they with one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican mountains. Their appearance can easily be imagined by those who have crossed the Alleghenies; but their sides were whiter, as if covered with snow, or a white stone."

Pike knew these mountains weren't like the gentle Alleghenies back east, but that's all he knew. He was the first man to see and record observations of any mountain west of the Mississippi. He wanted to be closer, to climb, to stand on the highest point of the land.

It was mid-November, and the weather was changing. Pike's men were ill-equipped for snow and higher altitudes, but they were brave and sure of their leader, Murphy says.

When Pike first spotted the "small blue cloud," he and his men were likely near Las Animas, about 110 miles from Colorado Springs, according to his journal. For 10 days, they marched toward its hazy hump and when they reached modern-day Pueblo, they set up camp. The mountain still loomed on the horizon, and on Nov. 23, Pike decided to take three of his men and climb it.

"Marched at ten o'clock ... encamped at night in the point of the grand forks (of a river). As the river appeared to be dividing itself into many small branches and of course must be near its extreme source, I concluded to put the party in a defensible situation and ascend the north fork to the high point of the blue mountain, which we conceived would be one day's march, in order to be enabled from its pinical (sic) to lay down the various branches and positions of the country."

Pike wasn't looking for a recreational hike. Instead, he continually searched for a vantage point from which he could map the land beneath him. "The guy was always climbing," Murphy says. "He climbed a mountain by Cañon City, he climbed one of the sub-summits along the Upper Arkansas, he built his fort at the bottom of a hill that he always had his men climb for a better view. He wanted to see what was out there. That's what drove him to climb."

The men built a breastwork of logs 5 feet high alongside the water, and on Nov. 24, Pike and three men - Dr. John Robinson, a volunteer surgeon, and Privates Theodore Miller and John Brown set out for the mountain.

"Nov. 25: We marched at one o'clock, with an idea of arriving at the foot of the mountain, but found ourselves obliged to take up our night's lodging under a single cedar which we found in the prairie, without water and extremely cold."

Slow progress

Still, the men remained optimistic. They thought the elusive peak was much closer than it really was, and they got up early on Nov. 26.

"Marched early, with an expectation of ascending the mountain, but was only able to encamp at its base after passing over many small hills covered with cedars and pitch pines."

The group expected to reach the summit and return to camp the same evening, so they left their blankets and a newly slaughtered deer, and headed up.

"We commenced ascending; found it very difficult, being obliged to climb up rocks, sometimes almost perpendicular; and after marching all day we encamped in a cave, without blankets, victuals or water. We had a fine, clear sky, while it was snowing at the bottom."

The men had started their climb. It was a day that Murphy says, "is the biggest day in American mountaineering."

The four struggled on, and about an hour after they began climbing, on Nov. 27, they "arrived at the highest of this chain," Pike wrote. It was indeed a summit - the four stood well above tree line, and remarked at the dearth of birds and animals - but not the summit of Pike's curiosity.

That mountain still stood in front of them, in plain view. Obviously vexed at his inability to judge the distance of mountains, Pike wrote: "The summit of the Grand Peak, which was entirely bare of vegetation and covered with snow, now appeared at the distance of 15 or 16 miles from us. It was as high again as what we had ascended, and it would have taken a whole day's march to arrive at its base, when I believe no human being could have ascended to its pinical (sic)."

Pike was a risk-taker, but he knew his men, dressed in "light overalls, with no stockings" weren't equipped to continue on this particular day, so they descended and headed back, arriving in their camp on Nov. 29.

The men would remain in the region until February, but they would never return to the "blue mountain."

Tracking Pike's route

Nearly 200 years later, Murphy did return, again and again. After pouring over topographic maps and reading and re-reading Pike's journal, he determined what he thought was Pike's route, and set out to prove himself right, by arranging a hike to the summit of Mount Rosa from the spot where he believed Pike built his base camp.

He knew his climbers should be in their 20s, relatively the same age as Pike and his men. He knew the weather conditions the day Pike climbed - 52 degrees at the base and 23 degrees on the summit. He knew the approach should be 34 miles, and he knew the climbers should gain about 6,000 feet in elevation. Just months before, he had located a cave Pike described in his journals, about an hour down from the summit of Rosa, to further advance the route he believed to be correct. And he knew that Pike described the mountain he climbed as "the highest of this chain."

Murphy also knew that Pike and his men had descended along a different, easier route, following a ravine cut by a stream. And he knew that when the climbers stood on the summit of their mountain, they had a full, unobstructed view of Pikes Peak.

Murphy believes the climbers proved his theory, even with all its denominators, and he believes his field tests helped place Pike firmly in mountaineering history.

"Pike completed the first recorded climb in the American West," Murphy says. "And the elevation gain they endured, and the number of miles they hiked made it an even more important accomplishment."

Fact and fiction

FICTION: Pike named the peak after himself.

FACT: In his journals, Pike called it Blue or Grand Mountain. On his map, he called it simply "highest mountain."

FICTION: Pike said he believed no one could ever climb Pikes Peak.

FACT: When he reached the summit of a nearby mountain, he said he knew that no man in his group, with its lack of provisions, could make it up that mountain on that day.

FICTION: Pike was a bumbler, an inept Army officer who wandered in circles.

FACT: Pike was an explorer, and often that means getting lost in uncharted territory. He met most of his objectives here.

FICTION: Pike was engaged in espionage with the man who commissioned his expedition, James Wilkinson, and former Vice President Aaron Burr. The two were accused of conspiring to break off the Louisiana Purchase into a separate nation.

FACT: Pike was sent west by Wilkinson, but he did what he was commissioned to do. He was later absolved of any collusion with Wilkinson.

Source: "Zebulon Montgomery Pike: Pathfinder and Patriot," by Harvey L. Carter, "The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike," edited by Elliott Coues.

Pike expedition accomplished all its goals

By Deb Acord/The Gazette

In the early 19th century, America was a country in transition. With the Louisiana Purchase, it suddenly had doubled in size. But still, only four roads crossed the Appalachian Mountains, and only 500,000 of the 5.3 million Americans lived west of that range.

President Thomas Jefferson had engineered the purchase of the giant chunk of land from the French, and he wanted to know what was out there. So in 1804, he appointed two Army officers, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to explore the West. Covering 8,000 miles in 28 months, they returned with tales of vast herds of buffalo, sometimes brutal weather, and their triumphant arrival at the Pacific Ocean.

But they stayed north on their journeys, completely missing what is now Colorado. Jefferson and others knew there was still uncharted land to the south that might contain an inconsequential mountain chain called the Rockies. They knew the boundary with modern-day Mexico was still fuzzy, and they wanted to settle taxation issues with French traders who lived there.

So, as Lewis and Clark returned to Washington, D.C., amid a flurry of galas and balls, a second expedition was launched. Led by Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike, it was a less-flashy, low-budget version of its predecessor.

On July 15, 1806, the 26-year-old Pike, 21 men and one interpreter left Belfountaine (near modern-day St. Louis) and headed west. By early November, they were in Colorado.

The journey was supposed to be a short one, but Pike soon realized it would take much longer than planned. His men were outfitted only for summer, sockless and dressed in cotton clothing. But Pike, ever the military man, knew he had to forge on.

"Finding the impossibility of performing the voyage in the time proposed, I determined to spare no pains to accomplish every objective, even should it oblige (sic) me to spend another winter in the desert," he wrote in his journal. (The Great Plains were called the Great American Desert.)

Pike was a military man first, and an explorer second. He joined the army at 15, following the example of his father, Capt. Zebulon Pike, and he knew how to instill loyalty in his men.

Lewis and Clark's expedition had been relatively simple - they were directed to follow the Missouri River west, then the Columbia River, to the Pacific Ocean. Pike's orders were more complex, and required skills in diplomacy and law enforcement as well as exploration, says local Pike historian John Patrick Michael Murphy.

"Pike had to make all sorts of treaties with the Indians. He met with the Pawnee and Arapahoe, and he set up all sorts of alliances. He raised hell with the French traders for not paying taxes. He was supposed to find the source of both the Arkansas and Red rivers," Murphy says.

And Pike and his men were successful.

"He came as close as anyone to making peace with the Comanches," Murphy says. "He bought us all sorts of land from the Indians that we used later for forts, found the source of the Arkansas and the Platte rivers, and most important, opened the Santa Fe Trail for trade."

But a feat rarely noted in history books is among Pike's greatest accomplishments, Murphy believes.

Pike logged the first recorded ascent of a mountain west of the Mississippi, gaining more than 6,000 feet in altitude. He had his sights set on the mountain that today bears his name - 14,110-foot Pikes Peak - and on Nov. 25, 1806, he and three of his men set out to climb it.

It was a much more daunting task than they had envisioned, however, and finally, after two days, they reached a mountain's base. Upon climbing to its summit, Pike estimated they were still 15 miles from his "blue mountain."

The men headed down and back to the others.

Pike continued to explore the region, searching for his rivers. "He was on his own. He had no illustrator, no naturalist with him. He had his telescope, which he used to read the moons of Jupiter to determine his location, and a Reaumur thermometer for measuring temperature," Murphy says. Existing maps were inaccurate and incomplete, so he was often left to his own calculations of distance and direction.

But he persevered. He and his men suffered through the winter, often going for days without eating, and made it through numerous encounters with Indians and roaming Spanish soldiers, often losing their horses. Several men suffered severe frostbite, but Pike didn't lose any men to the raw conditions.

In February, Pike and the others were still looking for the elusive Red River, and they wandered into Spanish territory. They were captured by Spanish soldiers and taken to Santa Fe, where they were detained and questioned by the governor, and then moved to Chihuahua.

Pike was accused of spying, but was finally returned to the United States. As a protest, the Spanish kept Pike's papers.

Pike, who had been promoted to captain during his expedition, returned home to his wife, Clarissa, and daughter in New Orleans. In fall 1807, they traveled to New York, and then to Washington, D.C. In 1810, his journals were published, and Pike finally got some of the recognition he had craved.

Pikes Peak	Pikes Peak and Mt. Rosa