A Great Southwest Road Trip: Durango-Silverton Railroad

After two nights in Mesa Verde (see part 6), we decided to scrap our next stop, Monument Valley, and go back to Durango to take a trip on the Durango-Silverton Railway, which had just opened for the season. The engine is coal-fired steam, gloriously polished with bright American flags flying from the front. We reserved seats in the open car to take advantage of the spectacular weather.

We got up early and drove down the long, windy mesa road from Mesa Verde to the train station in Durango and noticed a sudden proliferation of nasty-looking thunderclouds over the desert. As we drove closer to the Rockies, the skies closed in.

By the time we boarded the train, snow was coming down lightly in Durango, elevation 6,400 feet. Somehow it never occurred to us that when we got to Silverton, elevation 9,300 feet, things might be less than tropical. So we happily claimed our two outside seats in the gondola car and the train pulled away from the station.

The train follows the highway, 550 North, for a few miles before pulling away into the closest thing Colorado has to wilderness. It shadows the Animas River, one of America's most challenging. The rapids range from Class 3 to Class 5 with very few breaks all the way to the Animas Valley just north of Durango. We saw one section that had four or five Class 4+ to 5 chutes, one right after another. And there were people actually rafting, despite the freezing temperatures.

In Spanish, the name Rio de Animas means "River of Lost Souls". Whether that refers to the dead or just those who lost their spirits in a lonely, foreign wilderness, I don't know.

We quickly turned into touristsicles, and the rest of the gondola residents cleared out into the inside cars. The further up we went, the colder it got, until we got to Silverton itself, awash in a snowstorm:

We made the best of it and did a little shopping:

We also considered the merits of this establishment:

After a while, the snow subsided, and Silverton sparkled in a sliver of sunlight:

We bought blankets and mittens for the return trip, and climbed aboard the train as the snowstorm started up again. After we dropped into the narrow Animas river gorge, the snow subsided, and we felt like the train was about to tip over into the chutes:

I really, really didn't want to fall in.

During the summer, you'll need reservations for this train well in advance, but we got ours on the spur of the moment for reasons that only became clear when our hands went numb.

Back in Durango, we stayed at a competent Holiday Inn right on the river and took a walk up the river path.

Durango itself has several excellent art galleries. In my opinion at least one of them was better than anything we saw in New Mexico, including Santa Fe. So if you're an art freak, don't drive through Durango without stopping on the main street and perusing the shops.