The Devils Playground is the highest point in Teller County at an approximate elevation of 13,075 feet (3,985В m). The Devils Playground is named for the way lightning sometimes dances around the prominence during lightning storms. The Devils Playground is a minor subpeak of Pikes Peak located on the northwest side of the mountain near the Pikes Peak Highway. Forests at lower altitudes mostly lie over the brown stony, sandy, loams of the Catamount loam or Ivywild loam series. Soils on Pikes Peak above the timberline (approximately 12,000В ft or 3,700В m) are classified as Cirque land. Years of erosion and weathering removed the soil and rock leaving the exposed mountain.

Through the process of uplifting, the hardened rock pushed through the Earth's crust and created a dome-like mountain, covered with less resistant rock. It is thought that the granite was once magma that crystallized at least 20 miles (32В km) beneath the Earth's surface, formed by an igneous intrusion during the Precambrian, approximately 1.05В billion years ago, during the Grenville orogeny. The color is due to a large amount of potassium feldspar. It is composed of a characteristic pink granite called Pikes Peak granite. Pikes Peak is a designated National Historic Landmark. The massif rises 8,000В ft (2,400В m) above downtown Colorado Springs. Pikes Peak is one of Colorado's 54 fourteeners, mountains more than 14,000 feet (4,267.2В m) above sea level. Pikes Peak (Pikes Peak granite, Mesoproterozoic) The name was simplified to 'Pikes Peak' by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1890. The mountain was later renamed 'Pike's Peak' in honor of Pike. American explorer Zebulon Pike named the mountain 'Highest Peak' in 1806, and the mountain was later commonly known as 'Pike's Highest Peak.' American explorer Stephen Harriman Long named the mountain 'James Peak' in honor of Edwin James who climbed to the summit during Long's Expedition of 1820. Д®arly Spanish explorers named the mountain 'El CapitГЎn,' meaning 'The Leader'. Throughout its history, European peoples have called the mountain El CapitГЎn, Grand Peak, Great Peak, James Peak, Long Mountain, and Pike's Peak. In the 1800s, when the Arapaho people arrived in Colorado, they knew the mountain as Heey-otoyoo' meaning 'Long Mountain'. It is thought that the Ute people first arrived in Colorado about 500В A.D., however their oral history states that they were created on Tava. Tava or 'sun', is the Ute word that was given by these first people to the mountain that we now call Pikes Peak. The band of Ute people who called the Pikes Peak region their home were the Tabeguache, whose name means the 'People of Sun Mountain'.

Pikes peak cog train