Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak is the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in North America. The ultra-prominent 14,115-foot fourteener is located in Pike National Forest, 12 miles west of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado; the mountain is named in honor of American explorer Zebulon Pike, unable to reach the summit. The summit is higher than any point in the United States east of its longitude. Pikes Peak is one of mountains more than 14,000 feet above sea level; the massif rises 8,000 ft above downtown Colorado Springs. Pikes Peak is a designated National Historic Landmark. Tava or "sun", is the Ute word, 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, meaning the "People of Sun Mountain". The Ute people first arrived in Colorado about 500 A. D. although their traditions state they were created on Pikes Peak. In the 1800s, when the Arapaho people arrived in Colorado, they knew the mountain as Heey-otoyoo' meaning "Long Mountain".
Early Spanish explorers named the mountain "El Capitán" meaning "The Leader". American explorer Zebulon Pike named the mountain "Highest Peak" in 1806, the mountain was 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 in 1820; the mountain was renamed "Pike's Peak" in honor of Pike. The name was simplified to "Pikes Peak" by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1890. Pikes Peak is composed of a characteristic pink granite called Pikes Peak granite; the color is due to a large amount of potassium feldspar. It is thought that the granite was once magma that crystallized at least 20 miles beneath the Earth's surface, formed by an igneous intrusion during the Precambrian 1.05 billion years ago, during the Grenville orogeny. 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. Years of erosion and weathering removed the rock leaving the exposed mountain.
Soils on Pikes Peak are classified as Cirque Land above timberline. The first Europeans to discover Pikes Peak were the Spanish in the 1700s; the first American sighting is credited to members of the Pike expedition, led by Zebulon Pike. After a failed attempt to climb to the top in November 1806, Pike wrote in his journal:...here we found the snow middle deep. The thermometer which stood at 9° above 0 at the foot of the mountain, here fell to 4° below 0; the summit of the Grand Peak, bare of vegetation and covered with snow, now appeared at the distance of 15 or 16 miles from us, as high again as what we had ascended, would have taken a whole day's march to have arrived at its base, when I believed no human being could have ascended to its pinical. This with the condition of my soldiers who had only light overalls on, no stockings, every way ill provided to endure the inclemency of the region; the first European-American to climb the peak came 14 years after Pike, in the summer of 1820. Edwin James, a young student who had just graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, signed on as the relief botanist for Stephen Harriman Long's expedition after the first botanist had died.
The expedition explored the South Platte River up as far as present-day Denver turned south and passed close to what James called "Pike's highest peak". James and two other men left the expedition, camped on the plains, climbed the peak in two days, encountering little difficulty. Along the way, James was the first to describe Colorado's state flower. Gold was discovered in the area of present-day Denver in 1858, newspapers referred to the gold-mining area as "Pike's Peak". Pike's Peak or Bust became the slogan of the Colorado Gold Rush; this was more due to Pikes Peak's visibility to gold seekers traveling west across the plains than any actual significant gold find anywhere near Pikes Peak. Major gold deposits were not discovered in the Pikes Peak area until the Cripple Creek Mining District was discovered southwest of Pikes Peak and led, in 1893, to one of the last major gold rushes in the lower 48 states. In July 1860, Clark and Company commenced minting gold coins in Denver bearing the phrase "Pike's Peak Gold" and an artist's rendering of the peak on the obverse.
In 1863, the U. S. Treasury purchased the minting equipment for $25,000 to open the Denver Mint. Julia Archibald Holmes and James Holmes traveled to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in 1858, reached the summit on August 5, with J. D. Miller and George Peck, making Archibald Holmes the first European-American woman to climb Pikes Peak. From the summit, she wrote in a letter to her mother: "Nearly everyone tried to discourage me from attempting it, but I believed that I should succeed, it appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, on July 4, 1895. A plaque commemorating the words to the song was placed at the summit. On July 1
Southern Rocky Mountains
The Southern Rocky Mountains are a major subregion of the Rocky Mountains of North America located in the southeastern portion of the U. S. state of Wyoming, the central and western portions of Colorado, the northern portion of New Mexico, extreme eastern portions of Utah. The Southern Rocky Mountains are commonly known as the Southern Rockies, since the highest peaks are located in the State of Colorado, they are sometimes known as the Colorado Rockies, although many important ranges and peaks rise in the other three states; the Southern Rockies include the highest mountain ranges of the Rocky Mountains and include all 30 of the highest major peaks of the Rockies. The Southern Rocky Mountains are divided from the Western Rocky Mountains by the Green River and the Colorado River below the Green River; the Southern Rockies are divided from the Central Rocky Mountains by South Pass in Wyoming and the drainage running east from the pass down the Sweetwater River and the North Platte River. This divide between the Southern Rockies and the Central Rockies provided the lowest elevation traverse of the Rocky Mountain region for the historic Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail.
The southern end of the Rocky Mountains are considered to be the Jemez Mountains and the Southern Sangre De Cristo mountains of New Mexico. Mountains south of here in N. M. are classified as the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains using the EPA Level III Ecoregions System. This article defines a significant summit as a summit with at least 100 meters of topographic prominence, a major summit as a summit with at least 500 meters of topographic prominence. An ultra-prominent summit is a summit with at least 1500 meters of topographic prominence. All elevations in this article include an elevation adjustment from the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988. For further information, please see this United States National Geodetic Survey note; the following table lists the mountain ranges and subranges of the Southern Rocky Mountains with their highest summit. The following sortable table lists the 57 mountain peaks of the Southern Rocky Mountains with at least 4,000 meters of topographic elevation and at least 500 meters of topographic prominence.
The following sortable table lists the three ultra prominent summits of the Southern Rocky Mountains The following sortable table lists the 15 most topographically isolated peaks of the Southern Rocky Mountains with a topographic isolation of at least 50 kilometers and a topographic prominence of at least 500 meters. The following sortable table lists progressively the easternmost Rocky Mountain summits of their respective elevation; the following sortable table lists the paved mountain passes and highway summits of the Southern Rocky Mountains. Lists of mountains Mountain peaks of the Rocky Mountains National Geodetic Survey NGS Datasheets NGVD 29 to NAVD 88 online elevation converter @ NGS Geodetic Glossary @ NGS United States Geological Survey Rocky Mountains @ peakbagger.com Southern Rocky Mountains @ peakbagger.com World Mountain Encyclopedia @ peakware.com peaklist.org summitpost.org
Spencer Penrose
Spencer Penrose was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He established a Colorado hotel known as The Broadmoor. Spencer "Spec" Penrose was born on November 1865, to a prominent Philadelphia family; the family traces its origins to Bartholomew Penrose, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1698. Spencer's father, Richard Alexander Fullerton Penrose, was one of Philadelphia's finest doctors, founding the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in 1854. Spencer's mother, Sarah Hannah Boies Penrose, promoted a simple life of austerity for her family; the couple had seven sons. Their first son died in infancy, leaving Boies Penrose, Charles Bingham, Richard Alexander Fullerton Jr. Spencer, Francis Boies, Phillip Thomas; the Penrose family has a legacy of Harvard University graduates, with Boies and Richard all excelling in their studies at the university. Despite graduating at the bottom of his class from Harvard, Spencer had ambitions to travel west rather than become a doctor or politician like his family members.
After Harvard, Spencer Penrose traveled to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he owned several businesses, selling each for enough to cut his losses and try his next venture. His luck changed in 1892, when his brother, Richard – by a successful geologist – and Philadelphia family friend, Charles L. Tutt Sr. wrote to him about a potential gold rush in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Charles Tutt had arrived in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1884, where he found initial success in real estate. Tutt and Penrose had been childhood friends in Philadelphia, as both of their fathers were doctors at the children's hospital. Tutt loaned Penrose the money to purchase a half stake in his Cripple Creek real estate business which included the Cash on Delivery Mine and was the beginning of a long-lasting partnership between the two men; the Mine was one of the most successful in Cripple Creek, but as Penrose and Tutt continued their partnership and operations, they began to realize the value of opening a new business in ore processing.
Tutt and Penrose sold the C. O. D. Mine in 1895 for $250,000 and invested the money into their new venture: the Colorado-Philadelphia Reduction Company, an ore processing facility in Old Colorado City; the two men knew they would need someone with expertise in ore processing, so they brought on tenured miner and miller, Charles Mather MacNeill. The new partnership between Tutt and MacNeill led to the immediate growth of the Colorado-Philadelphia Reduction Company and its plant was treating over $3 million worth of Cripple Creek ore annually by 1899; the three men would create a mining and real estate empire in the years that followed. This initial success proved Spencer Penrose was capable of achieving great things in the west, but his true fortune would be found in copper from Utah; as their interests in Cripple Creek dwindled, Tutt and MacNeill followed through on the suggestion of metallurgist Daniel C. Jackling, who believed that a massive copper deposit located in Bingham Canyon, Utah could be mined.
Jackling had been a metallurgist for the Bingham Canyon Gold & Silver Mine, as well as being the chief engineer at the US Reduction Plant Company in Florence, Colorado. A survey revealed. After consulting both Jackling and Spencer's geologist brother, Richard Penrose, the men determined that the copper could yield incredible profits if they could find a way to efficiently extract the copper from the ore. Penrose formed the Utah Copper Company in 1903 and began the momentous task of building a mill that could extract the copper at a rate that most other mining and milling experts thought impossible. Despite the high risk and uncertainty during the early years of the Utah Copper Company, the gamble paid off and led to a fast-growing enterprise that mined and milled more copper than any of the men could have imagined, his success in Utah led Penrose to invest and begin copper mining operations across the Southwest in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada. Penrose's success in both Cripple Creek and Utah Copper created his immense fortune, which he brought back to Colorado Springs.
Penrose returned to Colorado Springs secure in his entrepreneurial acumen and inspired to showcase for the world the best that Colorado and the Rocky Mountains could offer. It was during this time that he met his future wife, widow Julie Villiers Lewis McMillan. Spencer and Julie became friends, as they both belonged in many of the same social circles within Colorado Springs. Although Penrose had made a prior pledge to forever remain a bachelor, he was won over by Julie's charm; the two married in London on April 28, 1906, spent their honeymoon traveling across Europe. It is believed that his travels through opulent European hotels and resorts inspired Penrose to return to Colorado Springs and build his own hotel to rival those of Europe. Spencer and Julie purchased the home of their close friend, Grace Goodyear Potter, who had the Spanish-style villa constructed in 1910; the house was built on the site of the Dixon Apple Orchard, where the estate's name “El Pomar” was derived. Spencer and Julie renovated the house with an additional two stories, corona marble tiles, exquisitely carved wood panels, sophisticated crystal chandeliers.
They hired the Olmsted Brothers, famed for their previous work designing outdoor landscapes such as Central Park, to design the surrounding grounds. The house is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and operates as a conference and meeting space available at no charge to Colorado's nonprofit organizations. Penrose is known for executing his ambitious plan to build a road to the 14,110 foot summit of Pikes Peak. A
Toll road
A toll road known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing implemented to help recoup the cost of road construction and maintenance. Toll roads have existed in some form since antiquity, with tolls levied on passing travellers on foot, wagon, or horseback; the amount of the toll varies by vehicle type, weight, or number of axles, with freight trucks charged higher rates than cars. Tolls are collected at toll booths, toll houses, stations, bars, or gates; some toll collection points are unmanned and the user deposits money in a machine which opens the gate once the correct toll has been paid. To cut costs and minimise time delay many tolls are collected by some form of automatic or electronic toll collection equipment which communicates electronically with a toll payer's transponder; some electronic toll roads maintain a system of toll booths so people without transponders can still pay the toll, but many newer roads now use automatic number plate recognition to charge drivers who use the road without a transponder, some older toll roads are being upgraded with such systems.
Criticisms of toll roads include the time taken to stop and pay the toll, the cost of the toll booth operators—up to about one-third of revenue in some cases. Automated toll-paying systems help minimise both of these. Others object to paying "twice" for the same road: with tolls. In addition to toll roads, toll bridges and toll tunnels are used by public authorities to generate funds to repay the cost of building the structures; some tolls are set aside to pay for future maintenance or enhancement of infrastructure, or are applied as a general fund by local governments, not being earmarked for transport facilities. This is sometimes prohibited by central government legislation. Road congestion pricing schemes have been implemented in a limited number of urban areas as a transportation demand management tool to try to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. Toll roads have existed for at least the last 2,700 years, as tolls had to be paid by travellers using the Susa–Babylon highway under the regime of Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the 7th century BC.
Aristotle and Pliny refer to other parts of Asia. In India, before the 4th century BC, the Arthashastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers across mountain passes. A 14th-century example is Castle Loevestein in the Netherlands, built at a strategic point where two rivers meet. River tolls were charged on boats sailing along the river; the Øresund in Scandinavia was once subject to a toll to the Danish Monarch, who derived a sizable portion of his revenue from it. Many modern European roads were constructed as toll roads in order to recoup the costs of construction, maintenance and as a source of tax money, paid by someone other than the local residents. In 14th-century England, some of the most used roads were repaired with money raised from tolls by pavage grants. Widespread toll roads sometimes restricted traffic so much, by their high tolls, that they interfered with trade and cheap transportation needed to alleviate local famines or shortages. Tolls were used in the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th centuries.
Industrialisation in Europe needed major improvements to the transport infrastructure which included many new or improved roads, financed from tolls. The A5 road in Britain was built to provide a robust transport link between Britain and Ireland and had a toll house every few miles. In the 20th century, road tolls were introduced in Europe to finance the construction of motorway networks and specific transport infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels. Italy was the first European country to charge motorway tolls, on a 50 kilometres motorway section near Milan in 1924, it was followed by Greece, which made users pay for the network of motorways around and between its cities in 1927. In the 1950s and 1960s, France and Portugal started to build motorways with the aid of concessions, allowing rapid development of this infrastructure without massive state debts. Since road tolls have been introduced in the majority of the EU member states. In the United States, prior to the introduction of the Interstate Highway System and the large federal grants supplied to states to build it, many states constructed their first controlled-access highways by floating bonds backed by toll revenues.
Starting with the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940, followed by similar roads in New Jersey, New York and others, numerous states throughout the 1950s established major toll roads. With the establishment of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s, toll road construction in the U. S. slowed down as the federal government now provided the bulk of funding to construct new freeways, regulations required that such Interstate highways be free from tolls. Many older toll roads were added to the Interstate System under a grandfather clause that allowed tolls to continue to be collected on toll roads that predated the system; some of these such as the Connecticut Turnpike and the Richmond–Petersburg Turnpike removed their tolls when the initial bonds were paid off. Many states, have maintained the tolling of these roads as a consistent source of revenue; as the
Environmental degradation
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air and soil. It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable; as indicated by the I=PAT equation, environmental impact or degradation is caused by the combination of an very large and increasing human population, continually increasing economic growth or per capita affluence, the application of resource-depleting and polluting technology. Environmental degradation is one of the ten threats cautioned by the High-level Panel on Threats and Change of the United Nations; the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction defines environmental degradation as "the reduction of the capacity of the environment to meet social and ecological objectives, needs". Environmental degradation comes in many types; when natural habitats are destroyed or natural resources are depleted, the environment is degraded. Efforts to counteract this problem include environmental protection and environmental resources management.
One major component of environmental degradation is the depletion of the resource of fresh water on Earth. Only 2.5g% of all of the water on Earth is fresh water, with the rest being salt water. 69% of fresh water is frozen in ice caps located on Antarctica and Greenland, so only 30% of the 2.5% of fresh water is available for consumption. Fresh water is an exceptionally important resource, since life on Earth is dependent on it. Water transports nutrients and chemicals within the biosphere to all forms of life, sustains both plants and animals, moulds the surface of the Earth with transportation and deposition of materials; the current top three uses of fresh water account for 95% of its consumption. It is estimated that one in three people over the entire globe are facing water shortages one-fifth of the world population live in areas of physical water scarcity, one quarter of the world's population live in a developing country that lacks the necessary infrastructure to use water from available rivers and aquifers.
Water scarcity is an increasing problem due to many foreseen issues in the future including population growth, increased urbanization, higher standards of living, climate change. Climate change affects the Earth's water supply in a large number of ways, it is predicted that the mean global temperature will rise in the coming years due to a number of forces affecting the climate. The amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide will rise, both of these will influence water resources. Transpiration from plants can be affected by a rise in atmospheric CO2, which can decrease their use of water, but can raise their use of water from possible increases of leaf area. Temperature rise can reduce the snow season in the winter and increase the intensity of the melting snow leading to peak runoff of this, affecting soil moisture and drought risks, storage capacities depending on the area. Warmer winter temperatures cause a decrease in snowpack, which can result in diminished water resources during summer; this is important at mid-latitudes and in mountain regions that depend on glacial runoff to replenish their river systems and groundwater supplies, making these areas vulnerable to water shortages over time.
Thermal expansion of water and increased melting of oceanic glaciers from an increase in temperature gives way to a rise in sea level. This can affect the fresh water supply to coastal areas as well; as river mouths and deltas with higher salinity get pushed further inland, an intrusion of saltwater results in an increase of salinity in reservoirs and aquifers. Sea-level rise may consequently be caused by a depletion of groundwater, as climate change can affect the hydrologic cycle in a number of ways. Uneven distributions of increased temperatures and increased precipitation around the globe results in water surpluses and deficits, but a global decrease in groundwater suggests a rise in sea level after meltwater and thermal expansion were accounted for, which can provide a positive feedback to the problems sea-level rise causes to fresh-water supply. A rise in air temperature results in a rise in water temperature, very significant in water degradation as the water would become more susceptible to bacterial growth.
An increase in water temperature can affect ecosystems because of a species' sensitivity to temperature, by inducing changes in a body of water's self-purification system from decreased amounts of dissolved oxygen in the water due to rises in temperature. A rise in global temperatures is predicted to correlate with an increase in global precipitation but because of increased runoff, increased rates of soil erosion, mass movement of land, a decline in water quality is probable, because while water will carry more nutrients it will carry more contaminants. While
Cascade, Colorado
Cascade is an unincorporated community and U. S. Post Office in El Paso County, United States; the ZIP Code of the Cascade Post Office is 80809. It was a resort town, from the 1880s to the 1920s. Tourists traveled through Ute Pass on the Colorado Midland Railway, experiencing scenic views of Cascade canon and its falls during their journey. Carriage tours brought tourists up Pikes Pike to its summit. Tourism fell when the Manitou and Pike's Peak Cog Railway opened in 1892, tourists were about to travel to the summit of Pikes Peak through Manitou Springs; when visitors traveled by automobiles, beginning in the 1920s, they had different needs and came in smaller numbers than the previous decades. The Ute Pass region could no longer support large hotels and 2 of the 3 hotels in town were demolished by 1926. Eastholme, a small inn, has been foreclosed and is for sale; the Pikes Peak Highway entrance is at Cascade. Cascade remains a tourist destination, with visitors staying in inns and breakfasts, cottages and guest houses.
Eliza Marriott Hewlett, the oldest of three sisters, left the state of New York for Colorado in the 1880s, brought her two children with her to Cascade before it was a town. It was quite uncommon for "ladies of leisure" to have moved to Colorado during this period. Most of Cascade Canyon was homesteaded by the sisters. Others came to the area for their health. In the 1880s, there were people in the Cascade Canyon area that ran businesses delivering supplies via mule trains to the Leadville and Cripple Creek mining towns. After 1887, the Colorado Midland Railway provided service from Old Colorado City Colorado City, west through Ute Pass. A railroad depot, dining hall and water tank were established in Cascade by the railway in 1888. Views from the train ride through Cascade Canon were McGregor Falls, Lullaby Falls, Dome Rock, Peek-a-Boo Falls, Artist's Glen, Sylvan Nook and Cascade, Twin Cascade, Crystal Spray, Queen of the Canon, Souvenir Falls, The Key Hole, The Stairway, Naiad's Bath, Upper Falls and Grotto Falls.
Cascade canon and its falls were described in 1914: The canon and falls are rare in beauty and constitute the chief attraction... The canon is about three-quarters of a mile long and deep; this exceptional vegetation is produced by the flow of Cascade creek through the canon and the mist and spray from its falls. Some of these falls are as much as 30 feet in height, but the difference in elevation between the foot and the head of the canon is so great that the falls are continuous from the head down; the volume of water is the greatest during the summer season. It comes from the melting snows on the north slope of Pike's Peak. Thousands of tourists traveled along the Pikes Peak Carriage Road known as the Pikes Peak Wagon Road, up to Pikes Peak's summit. Passengers were picked up at a railway stop by awaiting carriages and taken to the summit of Pikes Peak, it was opened by the Cascade Town Company in 1888 and closed in 1902. The carriage road company went bankrupt following the success of the Manitou and Pike's Peak Cog Railway that opened in 1892.
The Cascade Town and Improvement Company was founded and, with Eliza Hewlett, contributed to the cost of the development of the Pikes Peak Carriage Road. It purchased land from the Marriott-Hewlett sisters in 1886, shortly thereafter platted the village's roads; the town of Cascade was established in 1886, was named for the many waterfalls in the area. Ute Park, now Chipita, Green Mountain Falls and Crystola were developed in this time period. Eastholme, a boarding room and small hotel was built between 1885 and 1887, by Eliza Marriot Hewlett and her sisters; the Cascade Canyon House was opened by the Cascade Town Company in 1887 and The Ramona House, "the town's centerpiece", was built in 1890 and opened in 1891. Hotel Ramona was a three-story hotel with verandas and a radish-shaped dome and "would dominate the entrance to Cascade Canon, it was named after the book Ramona by Helen Hunt. People traveled to Cascade during the summers: It was a place where families -- privileged and correct -- returned summer after summer.
They picnicked far up in the canyon. Under the pavilion at Deer Lick Springs, they faithfully sipped mineral waters... They tripped the light fantastic on Saturdays, they attended musicals in the parlor of the Ramona on Sundays; the young ones danced at the pavilion down by the depot. The town had natural cold water springs and mineral springs. One of the springs near the Fountain, it contains carbonic acid, silica, sulfuric acid, lime or calcium and sodium. Another is up the canon a short distance and has a high iron content, as well as chlorine, sulfuric acid, carbonic acid, magnesia and soda. There were 2 or 3 "pure, cold water" springs that were located near the Hotel Ramona; the Cascade Post Office opened on August 16, 1887. Mrs. Hewlett has a church built in the area after her sister Caroline was married to an Episcopalian minister. Eastholme was abandoned in 1918 following the closure of the Colorado Midland Railway. Large hotels "would disappear in the 1920s." In Cascade, the railway depot, dining hall, the large hotels, Cascade Canyon House and Hotel Ramona, were demolished by 1926.
A community house was built on the site of the Cascade Canyon House. During the 1920s many tourists began to travel by car, rather than train. Eastholme accommodated the travelers, as well as the Red Cloud Inn that open
Rod Millen
Rodney K. "Rod" Millen is a racing competitor, vehicle designer, business owner. He has competed in numerous genres of motorsports, including rally racing, off-road racing, hillclimbing and super touring. Rod Millen was born in New Zealand. Millen is the father of Rhys Millen and Ryan Millen, the brother of Steve Millen. All have raced in various types of motorsports. Both of Rod's son's, Ryan and Rhys have raced with him in the Baja 1000. Early in life Millen was trained as a surveyor, he is married to Shelly Campbell, the Event Director for the Leadfoot Festival held each February in Hahei, New Zealand. Millen began racing in the New Zealand Rally Championship, he was the season champion in 1975, 1976, 1977 driving Mazda Rx3s. Millen decided to move to the United States in 1978 to do rally races in the United States, again with a Mazda Rotary powered vehicle, the Rx7, he won the North American Race and Rally Championship in 1979. He repeated as the champion of the North American Race and Rally in 1980.
In 1981 he won the SCCA PRO Rally, he won his second series championship in 1985. He won back to back SCCA National Rally Championships in 1987 and 1988. While winning his third straight SCCA National Rally Championship in 1989, he won the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship. In 1989 he raced against his brother Steve in IMSA's 24 Hours of Daytona, he won the GTU division of the race with codrivers Al Bob Reed. He began competing in major hillclimbing events, in 1989 he won the Class C division at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Rod Millen competed in several World Rally Championship events from 1977 to 1992, he was most active from 1989 to 1992, driving a Mazda 323 AWD, codriven by Tony Sircombe. He placed second in the 1989 Rothman's Rally of New Zealand. In 1990 he won the Rim of the World SCCA PRO Rally event, finished second at the Rally Malaysia and the Rally Indonesia. Millen returned to the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, winning in the Open Class in 1991 and Showroom Class in 1992, he moved to the open rally division in 1993.
Millen began competing in the Mickey Thompson Stadium Series, an indoor stadium off-road racing series in 1991. He won two events in 1992, he won the series championship in the Grand National Sport Truck series in 1992, 1993, 1994. In the 12-year history of the series, he was the only driver to win the series championship in three consecutive years. In his career, he had 12 victories in the series, his success earned him a spot on the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association All-American First Team in 1992 and 1994. Millen captured the record for the fastest ascent of the 156 turn, 12.42 mile Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. He broke the old record time by 40 seconds when he ascended the hill in 10:04:06 in 1994 in his all wheel drive Toyota Celica, his record was broken on July 21, 2007 by Nobuhiro Tajima driving the Suzuki XL7 Hill Climb Special to a time of 10:01.408. However, Tajima's record was set after the Pikes Peak surface was paved whereas Millen's record was on dirt.
Rod had the fastest overall time at the famous mountain four more times, but was unable to beat his goal of completing the climb in less than 10 minutes. Millen and his wife became the first husband-wife team to contest the hill, he became the father-son to win overall titles on the hill. Millen competed in the South Africa Stadium series in 1997. Millen returned to his native country New Zealand to compete in the first annual Race to the Sky hillclimb in 1998 near Queenstown, he finished second overall in both 1998 and 1999. He began competing in the Pro-4 division in the Championship Off-Road Racing Series starting with selected events in 1999. Millen's first win in his Pro4 short course truck in 2000 was at the spring Crandon race, he finished second in the season points standings in 2000 after winning at Luxemburg, Fort Dodge, Bark River and Topeka, Kansas. He finished second at the BorgWarner World Championship Off-Road race at Crandon that year. Millen competed in several additional genres of motorsport in 2000.
He represented U. S. rally racing at the International Race of Champions at the Canary Islands. He finished third at the Baja 2000 off-road desert race in his Trophy Truck; the Baja 1000 was extended to 2000 miles that year. Millen won the SCCA Button Hollow 3 Hour enduro road race, he raced in the Goldrush International Hillclimb in New Zealand in 2000. Millen returned to the Race to the Sky hillclimb in 2001, won the Unlimited Class. In 2002 he had his second consecutive win in the Unlimited Class and his first overall, he finished second in 2003 and 2004. Rod has driven an RX-8 in the Formula D drifting series, he did not make the field. He competed at several events in 2006. Millen has competed in numerous Baja 1000 off-road racing events, most finishing second in class in 2006; the team, with his son Ryan Millen as one of the drivers, finished the 34-hour trek through the desert 33 seconds behind the winner in what is considered a photo finish. Millen won the Transsyberia rally 2007. With co-driver Richard Kelsey, they competed the 7,100 kilometers from Moscow, Russia to Ulan Bator, Mongolia the fastest of the 26 teams, driving one of 26 Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia rally cars.
Millen started Rod Millen Motorsports renamed MillenWorks, which began by preparing and building Millen's race cars. The company now develops vehicles, high performance parts, technology for racing, concept cars, the military. Rod Millen Motorsport Racing Team Millen W
