Warwick’s Pike’s Peak Venture
Many of the attendees at the 2007 American Truck Historical Society National Convention at Colorado Springs climbed Pike’s Peak in a convoy of old trucks or by other means over the now well developed road to the 14,000 ft. summit. That trip was not so easy in 1916 when William Warwick and his wife made it in a 1916 GMC model 30, 1½-ton truck. It was only the second commercial vehicle to reach the peak. The first was in 1909 when a Rapid truck (forerunner of GMC) made the trip in two days. The following is copied from Mr. Warwick’s book, Our Country Viewed from a Motor Truck (published by the General Motors Truck Co. in 1917) that described their double transcontinental trip in 1916-1917. They were a very tough and determined couple in an equally tough truck. Donald E. Meyer, GMC Truck Historian.
We did some fool things in our time. What do you think of this one? In Denver the papers said the ------- truck was the only truck that could and did make the top of Pike’s Peak in 1916. Well, after we got out of Denver and could see that old Peak, and to think of some of the places this old boat had come through, it was too bad to think the -------was the only one that could make it.
They did it two weeks before we got there and before the snow. I looked at that little mound and at the wife. She said: "Put the GMC on top or stop right here." So it was "turn left" at Colorado Springs at 1:45 p. m. Sunday. Now Sir! that old boat made it to the 11,245 feet in second, with no adjustment to carburetor to the top.
That was good, but here is the fool fun of it. At 11,000 feet we got a little pain in the heart, had to move very slow and a storm coming up, but we could not turn around. We got to the top at 6:15 p. m., after dark, and the wind was so bad the wife could not get out of the truck. I had to put the truck in the rocks and the big rope over the top or we would have had no truck. It was bad.
What with the pain and the wind and the thought of what a fool to come up a day like that, we were anything but comfortable. Well after I got things in good order, I got inside. We could not hear at all with the wind. We have an oil stove, so I thought we would be warm and a good supper would be fine. I did not think about the 14,000 feet and could not make the oil stove burn.
After one hour of hard work, we had to give it up. You see the wind was so bad we could not turn around and go down and no oxygen at 14,000 feet - a match would not light. Now bed was the only place to keep warm, so we got in just as we were, with our clothes on. A good job we did, for in about five minutes we could not breath at all, so had to get up again. We could not move about to keep warm; for that was bad on the heart. It was a time we will never forget.
About 2:00 a. m. the wind was not so bad; I got the truck down to 12,000 feet. That was better, but the oil stove would not burn at that, after all our work - and no photo of the truck on top. We were near the top yet at sun up and got a photo. It would have taken a day to have put the truck on top again, as we would have had to come down to turn around. Then in the afternoon a big snow storm came up so I was glad we did not try it. So the ------- was not the only truck up Pike’s Peak in 1916.
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