Day in the Rockies, simply stunning...

Day 26, Feb 28th

Even though I woke early, I had a reasonable nights sleep. I guess I’m now getting used to the narrow bedding and although I couldn’t possibly sleep like that on a permanent basis, it is now easily bearable.

What time did I get up? Well at first I wasn’t sure. My phone said 5:35am, but had it gone back an hour yet or not? I had absolutely no idea where we were, how close we were to the Nebraska/Colorado border where the time changes from Central US to Mountain US time. Maybe we were past the border? Either way, I felt like getting up anyway and beating everybody else to the shower. By the time I showered and changed and got back upstairs to the room it was almost 6am on my phone and there was no movement in the dining car which was to open for breakfast at 6am Mountain time, regardless if we were in Mountain timezone or not. No movement meant it was still only 5am, damn.

I grabbed my laptop and bag of tricks and headed to see if I could get a spot in the observation car amongst all the sleeping coach passengers I expected to find. When I got there the conductor was talking to some guy and there wasn’t anybody in sight. I told the conductor of my experience on the earlier train and he said it’s a fulltime job keeping them from sleeping in the SSL, but he usually does a sweep first thing in the morning and moves them along back to their seats if they are sleeping. I worked on the blog for an hour before deciding I better make a move for breakfast if I wanted to secure a good spot in the SSL for the trip into the Rockies. I went back to the room and woke Diane whilst securing my stuff in the room and told her I was going for an early breakfast.

I sat with a couple from Idaho who were cattle farmers and travelling back home after a week away. We got to talking about the weather and he said that he had just finished talking to his son back home who is looking after the farm in their absence. He said the weather is quite extreme on the farm and they have had a foot of snow over the weekend. His son needed to stay up because some of the cattle were calving and they needed to get the young calves and place them indoors almost immediately otherwise they couldn’t survive in the current environment. Ten minutes later, Diane turned up for breakfast, deciding to get up early herself.

After breakfast I returned to the SSL and settled in for what should be the most scenic day of all the days on the train we have travelled so far. The train was due into Denver at 7:15 and depart after refuelling and passenger moves at 08:05. We arrived in Denver at about 9:20, so just over 2 hours late. I’ve read a lot about this part of the trip and it’s beauty, but if only to reinforce that whilst stopped in Denver, 2 guys came along with long poles, one with a washer and the other a squeegee and washed all the windows on the train. They obviously want you to be able to clearly see. This has not happened on any of the trains we travelled on earlier in the trip, so I took it as a sign that is a special trip scenery wise and AMTRAK acknowledge just that. The train platform was adjacent to the home ground of the Colorado Rockies baseball team, but it was hard to get any worthwhile pictures from the angle I was on. The train finally departed Denver at 10:15, 2hrs 10mins late, but it was a slow crawl out of the station and rail area with frequent stops.

Before long, we were climbing our way slowly into the Rockies and with the sounds of John Denver’s ‘Colorado Rocky Mountain High’ playing in my head (how sad is that!!), I readied the camera hoping to catch some of the beauty. After a short while we came to what is a famous series of bends among rail buffs on the early ascent from Denver. A freight train was stationary on an adjoining line with almost 100 carriages on the back. The first bend is a sweeping left hand turn thru more than 180% followed by a right hander which turns back thru 270% with the line you just travelled clearly visible just below. I took a short video of the freight train below when we passed it again up the top...



As you can see, I was unfortunately seated on the wrong side for that video and picture. Indeed, the right hand side of the train is clearly the superior side when travelling west. Fortunately our roomette is on the right hand side and Diane got a great view of everything from our room. It soon became apparent however, that the SSL was not ideal for taking pictures, especially on the bluebird day we were enjoying today. There are just too many reflections bouncing off the windows and it is almost impossible to get a clear shot without some reflection. We steadily made our way up and thru the ‘Tunnel Section’ of the ascent which passes thru dozens of tunnels in just 30 odd miles of track. This video will give you some idea of the tunnel frequency and the sights from the SSL...



The final tunnel in the tunnel section is the 10km Moffat Tunnel which when built made a 6 hour trip around and over the mountain a 10 minute trip thru the mountain. As you emerge from the Moffat Tunnel, directly to the left is Winter Park Ski Resort right alongside the tracks. There is a perfectly formed mogul run used for competition and some jumps, as well as a chairlift just in that area as you emerge. About 10 minutes before we entered the tunnel, Diane came up to the SSL to see if I wanted lunch. We agreed to meet once we had gone thru the Moffat Tunnel.

After a burger lunch, I was happy to just go back to our room for the afternoon and hopefully get some pictures without light and reflection issues. I got plenty of pictures of the different rock formations which make up the Rockies, it is truly spectacular. I also took a few videos when we were going thru deep canyons that had just a single rail line and absolutely nothing else, the sidewalls of the giant canyons being within touching distance...





Pictures unfortunately don’t do the whole thing justice, well mine don’t anyway. The different formations and colours which make up the area are stunning and the 2 hours or more we spent following the frequently frozen Colorado River was also breathtakingly beautiful. For what seemed like mile after mile we followed the river on the right side of the train whilst on the other side of the river is Highway 70 which is often split into dual carriageways one on top of the other due to the steepness of the cliffs it was traversing...



Here are some of the many pictures I took during the day...

At the end of the day, the whole experience met my expectations. And those expectations were high after all the reading and research I had done suggested this particular section of the California Zephyr’s journey across America was among one of the world’s great train rides. It was truly a great conclusion to our ‘AMTRAK Adventure’ which we set out on 12 days ago and both Diane and myself have not a single regret for having done it.

Dinner was the usual, rare steak with mash. Diane had hers medium/well. Tomorrow morning hopefully sees us arriving in Reno in time to get our shuttle, but it is doubtful. We are still 2 hours behind, but they are confident they can make up some time this evening. If they can makeup an hour, we are still a chance of meeting Clive and Lorraine in time, but if not, we’ll just get a later shuttle and see them there.

Later...