Sept. 25, 2010 Alpen Rose RV Park Durango, Colorado

This morning after arranging for one of the park employees to take the dogs out sometime mid-day, we went into Durango to catch the bus portion of our Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Train excursion. It is 45 miles to Silverton from Durango and the bus trip was a little over an hour and half ride to get there. Both towns sit in a valley, but different valleys, so you have to get over a mountain (10,500 feet) to get there. Silverton is also about 1,000 ft. higher in altitude than Durango.

It was at about 8,000 feet. One of the peaks by Silverton that was 11,800 feet had snow on its cap. This was fresh snow from Wednesday of this week when the rest of the area had rain. During the trip up, we were told we hit the peak of the fall colors.

Silverton is a very small town that relies totally on the tourist trade. It was originally a mining town and remains set up to appear like an old western town, some of the buildings actually were from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

There were jewelry and T-shirt shops plus restaurants, one right after the other, on both sides of the street. We had some lunch and looked in several of the stores. Believe it or not, we didn’t buy a single thing.

We rode the train back to Durango. It seemed like a loooong trip back. The tracks follow the Animas River between the towns and that 45 mile trip takes 3 ½ hours. For the first hour or so, it runs right along side the river which had several rapids. Then it gradually begins to climb up above where the river has cut into the rock canyon. Eventually, as the train chugs along at a snails pace, it gets to the top of the pass, then starts down, still at a snails pace. There were interesting sights along the trip, but it did seem to take an awfully long time. There were a couple of bridges as we went on one side of the river then the other. There was also a lodge, Tall Timber Lodge, which was only accessible by rail. There were a few other places that seemed to be very isolated with no visible way into them other than by rail, raft or by foot. I suppose the highway was not terribly far away, maybe about a half mile, so I guess the people we saw hiking came into it on foot that way, then crossed the foot bridge over the river.



It was nearly 7:00 when we got back to the trailer. We talked to the guy who had walked the dogs. He said he had taken them out twice and they had been good. We thought he had taken the wrong dogs out for a walk. We have time for a shower to get rid of the sooty smell that drifted into our railcar so we can relax a little this evening.