Welcome to the beautiful little city of Manitou Springs! This past weekend, my husband and I adventured to this little town full of character to conquer the Manitou Incline.

Manitou Incline Advice: Get to the incline early. Hit the bathrooms at the Incline Base Camp before you begin your climb. Bring lots of water (like A LOT of water; a camelbak is highly recommended). Climb with a buddy (aka a husband who will make you finish the climb whether you like it or not lol). Have fun!

The Manitou Incline is 0.88 miles of stairs (hell) that has an elevation gain of 2,000 vertical feet. Now, I use the word “stairs” very loosely lol. Why? Most of the Manitou incline is more like full on box steps than stairs. Part of the way up, I was crawling rather than climbing because some of the steps were SO steep! If you decide to take on the incline, definitely get there early in the morning! This climb is hard in good weather so you can imagine what it’s like in a storm. We made the mistake of sleeping in (aka I wouldn’t get out of bed when my husband, Ross, asked me to lol) and we didn’t get to the incline till about 12pm.

Afternoon showers are the real deal in the mountains. Half way up the incline, the storm clouds rolled in and before we knew it, we were caught in a torrential downpour. I was far from pleased as was Ross…mainly because he had to deal with me complaining about how tired I was AND about the weather lol. After about 30 minutes of huddling under a pine tree to stay as dry as we could, the rain subsided to a slow drizzle and Ross and I began climbing once again.

Sticking through the pain & rain was well worth it once we made it to the top of the incline! The view is spectacular and the sense of accomplishment you feel is well worth the lengthy leg work out!

Would I recommend you try the Manitou Incline? YES! Would I ever do it again? NO.

Jk lol, maybe next year. Definitely not anytime soon. It’s currently five days after our climb and I am STILL sore. Like how is that possible?

Once we had tackled the incline, we made our way back down the mountain.

Once we were down, we decided to explore the cutie town and grab lunch at Manitou Brewing Co!

People this little brewery is SO cute and full of character! I highly recommend checking it out if you ever find yourself in Manitou Springs; BUT potentially be prepared for questionable service. Our waitress was really rude to us as well as the couple sitting next to us (in the waitress' defense, it was also very busy). Regardless, the food and atmosphere made up for our moody server!

If you visit Manitou Brewing Co, you MUST try their House Beers! Ross had the Cerise Mousseux Nouveau and I had the Lemon Blueberry Radler. I am not a big beer drinker and both were delicious!

For food, we ordered the Wings & Fries (we upgraded our fries to “specialty fries” with truffle oil & shaved parmesan), Fried House Pickles, the Baked Beef & Brie Croissant and the Incline Burger. Our eyes were certainly bigger than our stomachs but after doing the incline, we had a “treat yo’ self” mentality!

EVERYTHING we ordered was delicious. The Wings & Specialty Fries along with the beers were my favorite out of everything!

After we ate, we needed a little pick me up before the food coma set in. We headed down the street from the brewery to the Red Dog, Coffee Bakery Café.

This café was so cute and had art of dogs and cats all over the walls! The small art pieces were available for purchase making this café a fun place to peruse around while waiting for our latte’s!

Once we got our caffeine fix, we were off to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings!

Here we got to explore the ancient Anasazi Indian architecture, and what they considered home. Adventuring into the cliff dwellings was really fun and Ross and I had a great time learning about this Native American culture! Along with the cliff dwellings, there are two additional museums onsite where you can learn more about the Anasazi.

So if you’re looking for a little weekend getaway, we would 100% recommend heading to Manitou Springs!

xoxo denv.her.