Riding alongside the Animas River on the Durango & Silverton Railroad in Colorado

In July four of us used the Durango & Silverton Railroad to gain access to the Chicago Basin via their Needleton stop near the Weminuche Wilderness in the San Juan National Forest. The ticket price, per person, was $79 plus an additional $10 to load our backpacks into the storage car.

The train ride is certainly a fun option that saved us a couple of days backpacking even though we still hiked six miles (and a few thousand feet of elevation gain) to base camp. However, the train is also resource intensive - requiring nearly 8 tons (8,000 kilograms) of coal for the roundtrip from Durango to Silverton. About 75 percent of the coal is used to get the train up hill - dumping a lot of soot on anybody (and everything) in the open cars or alongside the tracks. During the summer, when the economy is good, they average four roundtrip trains per day with up to two weeks of reservations being required. During this summer (2009), the economy was the worst it had been since the Great Depression so they were running three trains per day and we made our reservations one business day in advance...

Anyway, we had a great trip and successfully climbed the four "14ers" that drain into Chicago Basin. And, while in Chicago Basin I was also able to complete Jupiter Mountain, a "13er" that's one of Colorado's "Centennials" (the 100 highest).

Here's my personal web page about climbing 14ers:
http://www.rogerwendell.com/14ers.html

Here's my personal web page about transportation:
http://www.rogerwendell.com/transportation.html

07-16-2009

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• durango
• silverton
• railroad
• train
• ride
• colorado
• 14ers
• climbing
• hiking