Garden of the Gods: Perkins Central Garden Trail

LisaFebruary 22, 2015

On another beautiful winter day, Mac and I headed over to Garden of the Gods (ironic that it’s 15 degrees and dumping snow as I type this). Garden of the Gods is a natural grouping of red sandstone rock formations. It’s absolutely stunning and is an essential stop on any trip to Colorado Springs. We stopped in the visitor’s center to get a park map and scope out the trails.

Address and Location

You will find Garden of the Gods at 1805 N 30th Street in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Visitor’s Center is on the east side of 30th street, while the park and its entrance are on the west (mountain) side.

Cost

Exploring Garden of the Gods is absolutely free. You can pay for several excursion or activity packages if you would like.

What to do

Garden of the Gods has tons of trails that you can hike; some are paved, some are gravel, and some are natural trail. You can also drive through the park and stop at a variety of pull-offs to hike or take photos. If you aren’t into hiking, you can go horseback riding or ride through the park on a narrated tour. And you will definitely need to stop by the Trading Post at the south end of the park. It’s full of great souvenirs.

For this visit, we opted to hike the Perkins Central Garden trail. It’s about 1.5 miles and shockingly goes through the center of the park. This trail offers a 360 degree view of Kissing Camels, one of the more famous formations in the park. It’s easy to hike with loads of places to take photos and is right off two parking areas. The more ambitious can apply for a rock-climbing permit to free climb most of the rocks. We spent about an hour wandering around, mostly because I was experimenting with settings on my camera.