Pikes Peak Park Ranger shares 50 years of experience on America’s Mountain with KRDO13
Bradley Davis
DIVIDE, Colo. (KRDO) – The longest-tenured seasonal ranger who has ever worked on Pikes Peak has retired after five decades of service and countless stories of helping people on America’s Mountain.
KRDO13’s Bradley Davis got to go on a trip up the mountain with him for old times’ sake.
John O’Brien retired this summer after patrolling the 19 miles of the Pikes Peak highway for 50 years.
“Do you miss it?” KRDO13’s Bradley Davis asked O’Brien.
“Oh yeah. Yeah, I miss it,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien has every mile marker memorized and a memory at all 156 curves.
“I got hit with lightning when I was parked down there,” O’Brien said as we drove up somewhere past mile marker 16. “The lightning hit the top of my car and took out my emergency lights and radio antenna, and blew out the car. So, I have a healthy respect for lightning.”
For the first time, O’Brien made the drive to the summit in his personal car as a retired ranger.
O’Brien proved to know all 156 curves up Pikes Peak Highway.
“This is the old ski area,” said O’Brien on one curve, followed by “right up here they hit me head on. They estimated going 50, 60, 70 miles per hour,” on the next curve.
Each one holding a memory.
The retired ranger mentioned that many drivers are not accustomed to driving on the mountain, which led him to help countless people during his 50 years of service to America’s Mountain, receiving thank-you letters from them over the years.
Including a letter from President Clinton and even one letter from a KRDO employee in the 1990s. O’Brien says the employee had slipped and fallen and was pretty badly hurt.”So, another ranger and I, we went up with snowshoes and got a Chinook helicopter from Fort Carson to pick him up.”
O’Brien loved to share his stories, mentioning giving visitors rides to motels, to pointing out critical areas in the park where you can see the wildlife.
Bradley Davis from KRDO13 realized that O’Brien’s stories as a ranger were extensive enough to require more than a thousand pages; however, the drive they went on together added one more chapter to O’Brien’s story.
“I’m glad you thought of this, Bradley. It’s nice to come up in my personal car rather than a patrol car.”