2015 -- Open Jaws ski trip Baltimore - Santa Fe - Taos - Breckingridge - Denver -- Pictures

[MARC Rider]

I believe I posted a short summary of this trip back soon after I took it, but I didn't post any pictures. I have finally uploaded them on a mass storage drive, so why not see what Amtral was doin g Long-distance-wise back in those thrilling days of yesteryear, six years ago.

Fir those who didn't read my original post, the excuse for the trip was a cross-country skiing jaunt, with 3 nights renting a house in Taos and 3 nights renting a condo in Breckenridge. The other excuse was to ride the SW Chief over the Raton pass before the apparent imminent reroute of the train. And I really wanted to see working semaphore signals. I did the whole thing by train, except of course, for the one-way car rental between Santa Fe and Denver. My ski companions met me in the Metropolitan Lounge at Chicago Union Station, having flown in that day, and, at the end of the trip, they flew directly home from Denver. They were interested in riding the Chief on it's historic route over Raton Pass, but otherwise weren't really hardcore rail nuts, so spending 8 days on a train wasn't for them. I rode out to Chicago on the Capitol Limited, then the Southwest Chief to Lamy, with the shuttle van into Santa Fe, where we picked up our car. Then from Denver to Chicago on the Zephyr, and from Chicago back to Baltimore on the Cardinal.

The train part of the trip went pretty well. No real bad delays. The food was pretty good. On the other hand, I developed acute mountain sickness at 9,300 ft in Breckenridge and fainted when using the bathroom in our condo. This had been building up with my total lack of appetite since about the time we arrived in Santa Fe five days earlier. A $600 (not covered by Blue Cross) house call from a local doc fixed everything, he put a needle in my rear with some kind of medicine and provided an oxygen concentrator to hook into my CPAP while I was sleeping, and even though I was still huffing and puffing on the trail, my appetite was much better, and I started enjoying food again.

Anyway, here are the imagoes:


Here's part of the Marc Chagall mosaic outside of Chicago City Hall. I arrived in Chicago a day early to make sure I'd make my connection to the Chief.


On the Chief. So long, Chicago!




Kansas City -- A Missouri River Runner trainset on the left, the Superliner Chief on the right.


Here's the current Amtrak waiting room in Kansas City....



...and here's where the passengers used to go.



Fresh air stop at La Junta, CO. The toilets in our car had gone on the fritz the night before. The showers, too. I had to go to the transdorm to take may shower. Fortunately, they were able to fix the plumbing here, and the rest of the trip (at least to Lamy) went with fully functioning toilets and showers.



There's a reason they call this part of the country the "Great Plains."

--Soon, we reach . . . The Rocky Mountains! Stay tuned.

 

[MARC Rider]

Finally, some topography!





Past Trinidad, and on to the Raton Pass.






Over the top at 7,500 ft. above sea level.


Raton, NM



Genuine semaphore signals on a US mainline railroad in the 21st century.



We're passing through the Glorietta Pass, which I think is more scenic than Raton Pass. Nice western scenery, but not the spectacular Rocky Mountain type scenery you find on the Zephyr or the Canadian.

Finally, arrival at Lamy, about an hour late. My baggage was waiting, and so was the shuttle driver.



The shuttle was a banged-up old 12-passenger van. We had a bit of a scarifying ride into Santa Fe (the driver loved using that accelerator pedal), and it ended up costing each of us extra because we needed to be dropped off at the Santa Fe Airport to pick up our rental car. Apparently the Amtrak Thruway fare is only to points within the city of Santa Fe, and the airport is just outside the city limits. We had to pick up the rental car at the airport because the only way I could book a one way rental was to pick up the car at the Santa Fe Airport and drop it off at Denver International Airport.

When we got to the Santa Fe Airport, we found the terminal building was locked up. This was a Sunday afternoon, after all, and while Santa Fe has some commercial airline service, it doesn't have much. A sign on the door directed us to the fixed base operator next door. They were open and had the rental car paperwork and the car keys. We soon loaded up our SUV and drove into town and our motel, a nice place right at the edge of the historic downtown (and a lot cheaper than the fancy places on the plaza.) It had local atmosphere, though, and the rooms even had "kiva" style firepaces.


Don't get too excited, I wasn't able to burn authentic piñon pine logs, it was a gas fireplace.

My first impression of Santa Fe was that it was one of the most "foreign" cities I've been to in the United States. Even the junk highway architecture is all in southwester adobe style. There's a good bit of Spanish (maybe not as much as in San Antonio) on display, and the local native pueblos are sure not shy advertising their casinos, the better to reclaim some of the wealth that the European settlers took from them.

We went for dinner in a local Mexican restaurant, and then to bed. The dinner was good, but as I went to bed, it seemed the food wasn't agreeing with my tummy, and I woke during the night feeling lousy, maybe even with a slight fever. I should point out that Santa Fe is at an altitude of about 7,500 feet, and so my body was working trying to acclimatize to the thin air. I never though this would be a problem, as I've made many trips to altitude and never had a problem other than huffing a puffing a bit, and maybe a headache for a day or two. I felt a little better in the morning, and enjoyed the nice New Mexican style breakfast buffet (the usual plus tortillas, huevos rancheros, and salsas) before walking over to check out the historic Plaza.

 

[oregon pioneer]

Liking your report and photos (and sighing for another trip like that, myself).

When I lived at sea level, I used to occasionally get a headache when I went to high elevations (it's not age-related). Now that I live at 4800', I feel like superwoman when I just descend a couple thousand feet, LOL!

 

[TrackWalker]

View attachment 21051
Over the top at 7,500 ft. above sea level.

Never considered an altimeter to bring with me.

EDIT- (16 minutes later) OK. Just bought one.
https://suncompany.net/products/altimeter203

 

[trainman74]

Smartphones can display your altitude (on the iPhone, it's in the included "Compass" app), although it's based on GPS, not barometric pressure.

 

[MARC Rider]

Smartphones can display your altitude (on the iPhone, it's in the included "Compass" app), although it's based on GPS, not barometric pressure.

Actually, I purchased the altimeter mainly to get the barometric pressure. Plus, I like getting gadgets that don't need batteries. (Just purchased a nice self-winding wristwatch.) I also bought a pulse oximeter for that trip (which alas, needs batteries), and my idea was to try to correlate my SpO2 with the barometric pressure. And, indeed, in Breckinridge, where I fainted from acute mountain sickness, the barometric pressure was south of 25 inches of Hg and my SpO2 was around 88%. I'm now messing around with using the pulse oximeter after a brisk walk while double masked. Alas, I had trouble reading the LED readout in the bright sunlight, but I think before I exercised, my SpO2 was 98%, after I was walking briskly up a hill masked for a while, it was 88%. I need to redo this on a cloudy day (or just run up and down stairs) to verify that I read the instrument correctly, but it suggests that exercising while double masked is like taking yourself instantly up to 9,000 feet.

 

[MARC Rider]

Smartphones can display your altitude (on the iPhone, it's in the included "Compass" app), although it's based on GPS, not barometric pressure.

Yeah, I have a topo map app that uses the phone's gps to give speed and altitude. The GPS is remarkably well aligned with the map view, the displayed location is always accurate, so I guess the speed indication is accurate. However, according to the app, it seems that most of the NEC between Washington and Baltimore is below sea level. It would probably be more accurate for the map to have a digital elevation model as a layer on the server and use that to determine altitude on the basis of the location.

 

[MARC Rider]

We did a quick turn around the plaza at Santa Fe before driving up to Taos.





Santa Fe is one of the sleepier state capitols I've been to, sort of on a par with Montpelier, VT. The actual state capitol and state office buildings, aren't around the plaza, but it sure seems that although the city has a reputation of being a significant place, once can see from the historical area that through most of its history, it was a pretty small town. Of course, New Mexico didn't even become a state until 1912, so this whole area was definitely out of the way through most of its history. Like I said in the previous post, very different from other parts of the US. It's sort of nice to see that some regionalism still survives and that this country hasn't been totally homogenized into a fast-food highway hellscape and bland universal internet culture.


Yeah, they really do hang the chiles up in bunches like that.


There are two ways to drive from Santa Fe to Taos, one being the "low road," which is the major highways running through the (relative) flatlands. This other is the "high road" which is a series of twisty, but well paved state highways running through small hill towns with an almost Mediterranean feel. The last part of it runs through Carson National Forest with this nice view of the Sangre de Christo Mountains.
We dropped into Taos, with an altitude of 7,000 ft., stopped off at a National Forest information center to get trail maps, and then found our rental house.







A pretty nice house. My room had a nice kiva fireplace and this comfy armchair. It was a shame we were only here 3 nights. We headed to the store, bought some food, and made dinner, and then, to bed and off to the snow the next day.

 

[MARC Rider]

We had two days for winter sports while staying at Taos. Our first day we found a nordic center with groomed ski trails located on the "Enchanted Circle," a scenic drive that circles around Wheeler Peak, the highest mountain in the state. On the second day, we went snowshoeing on the Amole Canyon trail system in Carson National Forest on the High Road south of Taos.

Here are some visitors at the Enchanted Forest Cross country ski area right off Bobcat Pass at about 9,800 feet. We were following the old climber's rule of "climbing high and sleeping low" to acclimatize to the altitude.



The roof of New Mexico.


A yurt.


On Snowshoes at Amole Canyon, at about 8,300 feet. Even though it was early February, it was starting to warm up, with temperatures heading into the high 30s, a condition we dealt with for the rest of the trip. In fact, on my last day in Denver, it went up into the 70s!






The day we left to drive to Breckinridge, we decided to stop and see the Taos Pueblo. It was a couple of miles drive off the highway, and when we go there, a guard with a walkie-talkie informed us that the pueblo was closed, and we should turn around and head out. At least we got to see a bit of the outside of the pueblo as we turned the car around, but everyone could have been saved a lot of trouble if someone posted a sign at the highway turnoff to inform the public that the pueblo was closed. I guess I'll have to come back sometime during tourist season and after the Covid epidemic to see this 1,000 year old traditional village.

Driving west, we first had to cross the Rio Grande, yes the same Rio Grande that forms the US-Mexico border also flows from north to south across New Mexico. It this point it runs through a pretty decent sized canyon.





After a while, we turned north, passing through a desert pocked with extinct volcanoes, the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument. We soon passed into Colorado, and passed by the trains of the Cumbres and Toltec railroad in Antonito. Then we drove into Alaosa and had lunch at a brewpub downtown. My appetite was slowly improving, so I enjoyed lunch. We stopped by the railroad depot, where a bunch of heritage railcars of the former Rio Grande Scenic Railroad were sitting.

Following lunch, we sped up the San Luis Valley, with the 14,000 ft. snow-covered peaks of the Sangre de Christo Range to our east. After some more driving over a low mountain pass, we passed through Fairplay, where it started raining. As we climbed higher, the rain turned to snow, and it was really coming down as we crossed Hoosier Pass at 11,500 ft. I was driving, fighting off an altitude induced headache, and trying to figure out how to use the newfangled low-gear shifter. Fortunately I did figure that out, and was able to work my way down the mountains, around numerous hairpin turns on a slow-covered road. At one point, I spun out and did close to a 360. It was a good thing I was only going 10 mph, and stayed on the road and didn't hit anybody. Oh, and did I mention that it was getting dark about this point. At last we got into Breckinridge and found our condo. I had absolutely no appetite to eat, but we went to the store and got a few things. I know I needed to get something down, so I had a bowl of canned chicken soup. It was a little later that I needed to use the restroom and ended up fainting on the commode.

As one can imagine, this was very concerning to everybody, and we noticed that the information book that came with the condo provided the number of a local doctor who dealt with this (apparently common) sort of occurrence. Of course, he was one of those doctors who didn't want to mess around with insurance companies, so I was out a nice fat sum of money. He did give very good service, including a house call, and wrote me a very nice letter for my insurance company, who nonetheless declined coverage. Apparently they would have rather I called 911 and taken an ambulance on a snowy night to a hospital on the other side of the Continental Divide and let them reimburse everyone for thousands of dollars instead of the $600 I was charged.

While Breckinridge is one of the higher-altitude ski resorts around at 9,300 feet, I've done a number of vacations at altitude and never had any problem before. The doc thought that maybe the bug I had the night I arrived at Santa Fe might have made me more susceptible to acute mountain sickness. In any event, whatever he injected into my rear end and the oxygen I was now sniffing through the nasal cannula out of the oxygen concentrator sure made me feel a lot better real fast.


Here's our condo in Breckinridge. Not quite as much character as the place we had in Taos, but still very spacious and comfortable.

 

[MARC Rider]

Back in the middle and late 1980s, I traveled to Colorado fairly frequently for work, either training classes or meetings. A lot of the classes were two-weeks, so we had a weekend we could use to drive up to the mountains. I also once wrapped a vacation weekend in Breckinridge after a training class. Back then, Breckinridge had a pretty big downhill ski area, but the town was still a funky little former mining town a bit spiffed up for the tourists. By 2015 the downhill ski area is at least twice as large, and the town has sprawled out, too. The Nordic Center was way off in the woods, it was like a backcountry area, but with groomed trails. Now it's surrounded by condos and a new base lodge for the downhill area.

There are lots of places to ski and snowshoe in the area, but after my little medical episode, we though it would be best to stay at the Nordic Center, where they have a ski patrol, just in case. in any event, I didn't have any more serious problems, though I was huffing and puffing more than was warranted by the terrain. I skied the first day and snowshoed the second.


Here's the Nordic Center. They had beautifully laid out and groomed trails. When we arrived in the morning, it was in the 20s, and the snow was firm. During the day, it warmed up to the high 30s and the snow got softer. Which mean the skis got faster and the chances of falling, at my skill level, got greater.


They certainly don't want to take any risks with their paying customers. This underpass wasn't here in 1985.




There's one of the base lodges for the downhill ski area.


Note the swimming pools. I guess they were heated. I saw some people sunbathing in swimsuits. I mean, it was warm, but not that warm, though I guess if you're in the sun with no wind, it might be OK.

There's so much traffic in Breckinridge now, they don't have enough space for parking at the base lodges. So they built a big parking lot in town and run a free gondola to the ski area. There are also a couple of intermediate stations that made it a lot easier for some of us nordic types to get to the upper part of the nordic ski/snowshoe area, and also take a look at the downhill area, too. It's always fun watching the skiers seemingly effortlessly glide down hills I would go near in cross-country skis. The gondola ride was kind of run, too. And it was free.

On our final morning, my companions left at the crack of dawn in order to catch their flight home from Denver. I slept in a bit, and waited for the doctor's lackey to reclaim the loaner oxygen concentrator. Then I hit the road, stopping at the rental office to return the condo key, and headed for Keystone. Instead of driving the fast way to Denver on I-70, I was going to take US 6 and drive over the Loveland Pass.



There we are. Almost 12,000 feet. I was getting a nice headache, but otherwise felt fine, and didn't faint or anything as I negotiated the hairpin turns up and down the pass.


This isn't too reassuring, though I guess they're not pointing the "long-range weaponry" in the direction of the highway.



Down the hill, back on to I-70, and soon it's a different world, and Denver is in sight.

 

[mcropod]

Thanks for taking me along for the ride.

 

[MARC Rider]

Thanks for taking me along for the ride.

You're welcome.

The trip isn't over yet. There's my night in Denver where I discover what a "420 friendly" airbnb room means, and a return trip on the Zephyr and the Cardinal.

 

[Willbridge]

Altitude reactions are kind of fluky. Twice I've been with families where one person suffered altitude and everyone else was fine. Once it was on Loveland Pass. I'm glad you were ready to deal with the 420 room in Denver.

 

[railiner]

Ah, that famous photo stop at the summit of Loveland Pass...I have many of those taken thru the years. The beautiful original sign was a lot nicer...

 

[trainman74]

I think there are pictures of a young me at both Loveland Pass and Berthoud Pass.

Loveland Pass is named after the same person as the city of Loveland, but they're fairly far away from each other. My mother's parents grew up in the latter in the 1920s and 1930s -- I wish I knew more about their childhoods, but they're no longer around to ask.

 

[MARC Rider]

I drove down off Lookout Mountain and into the maelstrom of Denver urban traffic. I had reserved an airbnb in the neighborhood near Cheesman Park. This was a large old house in which the owner rented the downstairs as an apartment, and had the upstairs for his airbnb guest. The listing had some tag "420 friendly" which, silly me, I didn't understand. But I quickly found out when I found that the bedroom was equipped with my very own bong. Alas, no weed was provided for guests, but there was a place to buy it within walking distance on Colfax. Surprisingly, the place didn't reek at all from the semi-legal herb, kudos to the host for being conscientious in cleaning and airing the place.

I arrived early enough in the afternoon to take a stroll through Cheesman Park. I awoke that morning in freezing weather and 3-4 feet of snow on the ground. I spent the afternoon in a park with a temperature that was in the low 70s. Well, that's Denver winter weather for you.



The botanic garden is found in this park, and I checked that out, too.

I had dinner in a place in the neighborhood, and then chilled out in the comfortable apartment, and then went to bed.

The next morning I had to return my rental car at DIA before I caught the Zephyr back to Chicago. Fortunately, the eastbound train leaves in the early evening, so I had all day to do this. However, I had lots of baggage to check through, way to much to be carrying on the bus back from DIA to Union Station. So first I drove down to Union Station fairly early Sunday morning, parked at a spot of questionable legality in front of the station, as there didn't seem to be any place to pull in to drop off baggage. Then I hauled my stuff to the baggage room, checked my skis and gear duffle back to Baltimore, and checked my carry-ons in the baggage room for the day. When I got back to the car, it was still there and unticketed.

Now, the drive to DIA. East on 70, I kept driving and driving, expecting to see the Kansas border soon. Finally, I got to the rental car center, which is also located a long way from the airport and returned my car. Then a ride in the rental car shuttle bus to the actual terminal. I could see some of the catenary and tracks for the A-line, which was under construction at he time; However, I would have to take the $11 RTD express bus. Just my luck, I got to the platform a few minutes after one left and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. The bus was OK, really an express bus (I think they made one stop), and it deposited us in an impressive underground bus station that's part of the Union Station complex. I got back in time to get breakfast at Snooze, in the station. I had lunch at the Wynkoop Brewing company, around the corner, and spent the day hanging around the station and walking up the 16th street mall.





The station itself is pretty impressive. The former waiting area is a big open atrium and the lobby of the Crawford Hotel. Then there are a few hard benches off by the gates for the train passengers, but, really, it's hard to tell where the hotel lobby ends, and the Amtrak station begins. You can relax in nice comfortable hotel lobby chairs, and even order something to drink from the Terminal Bar while waiting.

Finally, they call out train, and out we go to the platform and board. The trip was pretty uneventful. I had dinner, then went to sleep and woke up while we were passing through Iowa. We crossed the Mississippi River at Burlington, and it didn't seem as wide or massive as I remembered from the last time I took this ride in 1968. We made our way across Illinois and arrived in Chicago more or less on schedule.

Because I had booked the Cardinal, and we arrived on Monday, I had to spend the night in Chicago to make the Tuesday evening departure. I had reserved a room at the Club Quarters on Adams St., which was a short walk from the station. The next morning, I had a whole day to kill before the train left, so I decided to see something new -- The Garfield Park Conservatory on the West Side. Why not? I had just visited the Botanic Garden in Denver, it might be interesting to see how other cities showcase exotic plants.





That evening, I boarded the Cardinal for the final run back to Baltimore. This was the first time I took it eastbound, and in that direction you do get more of the New River Gorge scenery than you get on the westbound train. It was another uneventful ride. The scenery was OK, but it was cloudy and dreary, and the bare tree-covered mountains weren't quite as attractive as the golden fall foliage I saw on my last trip in 2019. We were delayed somewhere in Kentucky, and ran the whole day about 2 hours late.



He we are for a fresh air stop in Charlottesville. It got dark soon after that. They served us dinner, and we rolled on into Washington, where they changed engines. Then the short run to Baltimore, and I was home. My baggage had already arrived, so it was all packed in the car, and soon we were home, and another trip was over.

 

[como]

Back in the middle and late 1980s, I traveled to Colorado fairly frequently for work, either training classes or meetings. A lot of the classes were two-weeks, so we had a weekend we could use to drive up to the mountains. I also once wrapped a vacation weekend in Breckinridge after a training class. Back then, Breckinridge had a pretty big downhill ski area, but the town was still a funky little former mining town a bit spiffed up for the tourists. By 2015 the downhill ski area is at least twice as large, and the town has sprawled out, too. The Nordic Center was way off in the woods, it was like a backcountry area, but with groomed trails. Now it's surrounded by condos and a new base lodge for the downhill area.

There are lots of places to ski and snowshoe in the area, but after my little medical episode, we though it would be best to stay at the Nordic Center, where they have a ski patrol, just in case. in any event, I didn't have any more serious problems, though I was huffing and puffing more than was warranted by the terrain. I skied the first day and snowshoed the second.

View attachment 21195
Here's the Nordic Center. They had beautifully laid out and groomed trails. When we arrived in the morning, it was in the 20s, and the snow was firm. During the day, it warmed up to the high 30s and the snow got softer. Which mean the skis got faster and the chances of falling, at my skill level, got greater.

View attachment 21196
They certainly don't want to take any risks with their paying customers. This underpass wasn't here in 1985.

View attachment 21197

View attachment 21198
There's one of the base lodges for the downhill ski area.

View attachment 21199
Note the swimming pools. I guess they were heated. I saw some people sunbathing in swimsuits. I mean, it was warm, but not that warm, though I guess if you're in the sun with no wind, it might be OK.
View attachment 21211
There's so much traffic in Breckinridge now, they don't have enough space for parking at the base lodges. So they built a big parking lot in town and run a free gondola to the ski area. There are also a couple of intermediate stations that made it a lot easier for some of us nordic types to get to the upper part of the nordic ski/snowshoe area, and also take a look at the downhill area, too. It's always fun watching the skiers seemingly effortlessly glide down hills I would go near in cross-country skis. The gondola ride was kind of run, too. And it was free.

On our final morning, my companions left at the crack of dawn in order to catch their flight home from Denver. I slept in a bit, and waited for the doctor's lackey to reclaim the loaner oxygen concentrator. Then I hit the road, stopping at the rental office to return the condo key, and headed for Keystone. Instead of driving the fast way to Denver on I-70, I was going to take US 6 and drive over the Loveland Pass.

View attachment 21212

There we are. Almost 12,000 feet. I was getting a nice headache, but otherwise felt fine, and didn't faint or anything as I negotiated the hairpin turns up and down the pass.

View attachment 21216
This isn't too reassuring, though I guess they're not pointing the "long-range weaponry" in the direction of the highway.

View attachment 21218

Down the hill, back on to I-70, and soon it's a different world, and Denver is in sight.

View attachment 21219

It's interesting reading about how Breckenridge has changed. I'm from Colorado and would ski several times a year at Breckenridge from the late 1960's through 1974. It was much less developed than Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin, and Loveland which were a big deal in the 1970's. I was there in the spring of 1990 when the condo boom was just starting.

 

[Willbridge]

My grandsons enjoy Cheesman Park. I don't think they've found any of the stray bones that turn up. It was a cemetery in early days and when the city of Denver decided to make it a park they chose the lowest bidder to move the corpses. You can guess how careful they were.

I'm glad you liked Denver Union Station. It took 30 years of efforts to get that worked out. Right to the end the developers were trying to keep Amtrak and intercity buses out, which explains why the awkward parking situation. Tracks 4 and 5 are built in a manner that serves intercity trains but can be adjusted for high-level boarding of commuter trains "after it is no longer needed for Amtrak."