Day 7 - Train to Denver Part II

After a good night's' sleep, it's time to post about the rest of our train trip. Here's a picture of the train waiting at Glenwood Springs station.  After the town of Dotsero, the train headed north to follow the Colorado River as opposed to I-70 which heads east to Vail and the Eisenhower tunnel.  So this was all new scenery to us.

We passed through three interesting canyons, Burns, Gore and Byers, with the most impressive one being Gore Canyon.  Here are several pictures showing the canyons.   We saw a number of rafters on the river as we went past, but many of the rapids in the upper stretches of the river were too severe for rafting, like the bottom left picture.

You can see some of the whitewater in these pictures.  I especially like the one on the bottom right which shows three tunnels that we are about to transit. (The first tunnel can be hard to see since train engine is just entering it.)

This is just a small sample of the beautiful scenery we experienced.  

We did see some wildlife on this day.  Mary got this picture of a dad eagle and and eaglet in the nest.  She also got this one of a mom and baby elk.

So now we are waiting to head to the airport for our flight home.  I'm planning one more post as an overview of the entire trip.  It's been an interesting 8 days!

Day 7 - Train to Denver Part I

Today we enjoyed day two of our train trip  as we traveled from Glenwood Springs to Denver.  Overall, this trip exceeded our expectations in scenery, service, and food!  Being on the train, we often were in areas that had no roads, so we were seeing scenery that was brand new to us.  This was especially true today as the train did not follow I-70 once we got past Dotsero, CO.

The 12 mile stretch through Glenwood Canyon is the main reason we booked this trip.  After driving through the canyon for 15 years and saying "I wonder what it looks like from the train", thankfully Rocky Mountaineer starting servicing this route a few years ago on their Red Rocks to Rockies route.

Upon leaving Glenwood Springs, we immediately entered Glenwood Canyon.  

Here are four pictures that  show the river, cliffs, and I-70 roadway that was especially engineered to blend in with the canyon and provided minimal disruption to the esthetics.

For those of you who want to see more, check out my album Glenwood Canyon by Train which has about 50 pictures I took as the train passed through the canyon.  

More to come tomorrow as I post about the rest of our day in Part II.  It's been  long day and I want to do justice to what I post about this wonderful trip.

Tomorrow is our travel day back home with a direct afternoon flight back to Detroit.

Day 6 - Train to Glenwood Springs

 

We had a nice, relaxing morning since we did not need to get to the Rocky Mountaineer Guest Center until 1pm, just had to check out of the hotel and turn in the rental car.  Then we were notified of a delay until 2:15 pm.  But we kept with our original schedule and just had more time in the guest center.  We boarded the bus for a 15 minute ride to the train, where we got on board and set out on our train ride.

As expected there was lots of amazing scenery.  We even saw a small group of antelope (click to enlarge, photo on left).  They were on the move, but paused just so I could get this picture!  We both took lots of photos but this one will have to suffice. 

One area that took us by surprise was going through Ruby Canyon.  While much wider than Glenwood Canyon, it had a lot of different geological features including some very high cliffs and different colors of rocks.  No roads go through it so it is only accessible by train or the river.   We were both enjoyed watching the scenery so much, that we only took a few pictures, so these will have to suffice. You can click the Ruby Canyon link to see more courtesy of Wikipedia.

After clearing Ruby Canyon, we saw a lot of smoke in the distance.  It turns out we were passing very close to an active wildfire!   Reportedly it had grown from 20 acres to over 600 acres today.  There were lots of firefighting planes flying around it and we even got to see a large C-130 drop fire retardant.  It was rather exciting to watch.  The cloud of smoke from the fire was drifting east so we passed underneath it as we headed into Glenwood Springs.

Due to our late start we did not arrive in Glenwood Springs until 9 pm.  That was a bit late to stop by my favorite brewpub for a Hanging Lake Honey Ale, but that's how it goes sometimes.  We walked to the Hotel Colorado where our luggage was waiting for us.

Tomorrow we only need to be back to the train station by 10:40 am, so we'll have some time in the morning to spend in the town before heading on to Denver. 

Day 5 Moab Jeep Trail

 Today was our jeep tour through some canyons north of Moab, to see the Gemini Bridges. Here we are standing in the bridge.  Click on the picture to make it larger so you can actually see us!

It is actually a double bridge with about 20' between the two spans. I tried to take a picture between the two, but it did not show much.

The trail itself is rated as an easy 4-wheel-drive trail but it sure seemed pretty rough to us (and the other passengers)! We were fortunate to be in the back seat of the jeep as opposed to riding on the seats in the truck bed of the jeep.  At the first stop, we received offers to trade seats, but we respectfully declined.  It was a rough ride, but I guess that's what you should expect on a 4 wheel drive trail.

Here are some pictures showing the desolate beauty of this area.  I could have taken a hundred pictures and still not captured everything. 

Top left is a general scene taken at one of our stops.

Top right is a view showing the rugged terrain.

Bottom left is looking away from the Gemini Bridges

Bottom Right is a rock formation they call the Dodo Bird.

This ends our scenic visit to Moab.  Tomorrow we pack up and catch the Rocky Mountaineer train to Denver, stopping overnight in Glenwood Springs.

Day 4 Moab Rafting

Our main activity for today was a supposedly quiet rafting float down the Colorado River, mostly smooth with the possibility of class I and II rapids (Waves that make fun splashes). We had to be there by 8:30 and about 9 am we got the safety briefing and headed out.  We were on a raft with an extended family of 6, and the trip started out quite smooth.

Two of the rafts started a squirt gun fight, but we backed away to stay dry.  But soon we entered what the guide called the heaviest rapids on this section of the river.  Of the 4 boats in our group, only our guide put us on a bad path and we got sucked into what he called a "hole".  Things then got very exciting!  We took several waves over the bow, tipped the boat sideways (at least 30 degrees), and tossed a dad and his 7 year old daughter into the water!  I thought we were going over, but we quickly righted and took a few more waves.  The dad caught his daughter and got her back into the boat and held onto the safety rope until we got into smooth water. 

The result was that we were totally soaked, from our shoes to our hats.  Fortunately nothing washed overboard.  The rest of the trip was uneventful.  When the ride was done and we were back on dry land, I took off my shoes and wrung the water out of my socks and t-shirt.  With the sunshine and the dry climate, our clothes were partially dry by the time we boarded the bus.  

And so ended our unexpectedly exciting day!

Tomorrow we go on a 4 hour jeep trip through the colorful canyons.

Day 3- Driving to Moab

 Not a lot to write about today as we spent about 4 hours on the 230 mile drive to Moab.  Mary got a few scenery pictures during our drive as you can see below.

We took I-15 to Provo, then headed cross country on US-6.  At first the terrain was rather mountainous, then was hilly, then barren plains, and finally the red rocks around Moab.   We took a couple of stretch breaks and arrived at the Canyonlands Best Western by 1 pm and found it to be a very nice place to stay.  

On the way I had thoughts of taking an evening drive thru the Arches National park, but when we saw the 1/2 mile long double lane line of traffic heading into the park, that idea was quickly squashed. 

So we are resting up, catching some rays, and getting ready for tomorrow's 1/2 day float trip through Canyon Valley.   Hoping to get some great pictures!

Day 2 - Salt Lake City

 We had not preplanned anything to do during the day today (unusual for me!)  before hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice in the evening. This morning I did a search and we decided on the Olympic Cauldron Plaza and Great Salt Lake.  

Seeing the cauldron proved to be elusive.  GPS took us to the address, but we didn't see it.  We later figured out that we actually drove right past it without recognizing it, as we were expecting something quite different.  So we gave up and headed to Great Salt Lake State Park.

At the state park we walked around and took a few pictures.  It was easy to walk right down to the waters edge.  They had a nice visitor center with a movie about the history of the lake and surrounding area.  That's Antelope Island in the distance. 

Next we decided to visit the Antelope Island state park which we had visited on our last trip here in 2019.  It is a much nicer and larger park, connected to the mainland by a 6 mile long causeway. The picture on the right shows how low the water level is, and it is reportedly up quite a bit due to all the rainfall the west received in recent months.

We did spot one buffalo on the island and Mary got this great picture of him from our car. I could not resist taking the picture on the right from the causeway, due to the wonderful reflection and how it shows the large salt flats. 

After dinner we headed to the Mormon Conference Center to hear the choir practice.  But as we pulled into the garage, the attendant told us the choir had just returned from a trip to Mexico and was taking a break!  So, once again, we did not get to hear them practice. (On our 2019 trip it overlapped with a major festival.) 

On our drive, we then saw all this scaffolding around the temple so some major restoration work is in progress.  I cannot begin to guess how much that scaffolding cost!  We then decided to see the state capital building before driving around the downtown a bit.

Overall, we had a very good day, even if we were disappointed about not hearing the choir practice. 

Tomorrow is a travel day as we head to Moab for 3 nights.  

Day 1 of our Utah to Colorado Train Trip

Every time we've driven through Glenwood Canyon, we've seen the train tracks that run along the river at the bottom of the canyon and say "Wouldn't it be great to ride a train there?"  And now we're going to!  A dome train will take us east from Moab, stopping overnight in Glenwood Springs, then on to Denver.  So that is the main purpose of this trip, and we've tacked on a few days before the train for some general Utah sight-seeing.

We had a rather long travel day today, with both of our flights delayed by 30 - 45 minutes, and a 3 hour layover in Denver, but we made it to Salt Lake City and are settled into our hotel. 

As usual we were ready early so we headed to the airport for our flight. Overall it went fairly smooth, with the incoming flight being a bit late, but Southwest sure knows how to turn around a plane quickly! We had supper in Denver airport, boarded the plane easily, then sat on our plane for quite a while due to a paperwork issue.  Rental car pickup was smooth and completely paperless. 

Mary got some pictures of the Rockies as we flew over them, as well as a snow-capped peak just south of Salt Lake City.  

Not much else to say about today.  Tomorrow we will sightsee, then head to Confernece Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice in the evening.