Cortez, CO to Cumbres & Toltec Railway, Chama, New Mexico

June 7, 2017

Canyon of the Ancients National Monument

Time to slow down so spent 4 nights in the McPhee Reservoir around Delores and Cortez, CO. What a beautiful place. We love the not so populated areas for a variety of reasons; one being the sense of excitement when you discover, without a marked sign, a ruin or petroglyph. We got up early, grabbed water and binoculars and took off on a trail. From a distance the lure of ruins drew us further in.

I love these collard lizards

McPhee Campground 3@$20 – 1@$12

There are many beautiful people on this planet and it is a treat when two cross your path. Thank you Ellen and Bill for embracing us, for spending the afternoon at Sutcliffe Winery with us and for opening your home to us. You both will be forever a bright spot in our travels.

Sutcliffe Winery, a place I want to have a family reunion.

Honestly Arnie and I loved the Cortez/Dolores area. We hated leaving but headed up scenic route 145 through the San Juan National Forest. Ellen and Bill suggested we park in Mountain Village and take the gondolas to Telluride. It was a perfect way to explore Telluride.

Boulders really do fall from the mountains. Yikes!!!

Heading into Mountain Village

Dropping into Telluride

A walk along the rivers edge

Look familiar?

Hint 😜

I love the shades of green.

BLM outside of Ouray $-0-

Spent the morning in Silverton

Afternoon in Durango regrouping (pic is on our way to Durango)

And on to Pagosa Springs

East Fork Campground- $11

Spent the day around Pagosa Springs looking for property

Heron Lake Campground 2@ $14

June 15, 2019

Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad

Few deliver on promise quite like the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad — a 64-mile, narrow-gauge route across the rugged San Juan Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado that has gone nearly unchanged since the last freight train rumbled over Cumbres Pass 50 years ago. 

The tracks between Chama, NM and Antonito, CO were about to be ripped up when historians and railroad enthusiasts began looking at ways to save the line. Their efforts to convince the states that they were worthy of saving paid off. Officials saw the potential for turning the railroad, which traversed some of the region’s most spectacular scenery, into a tourist attraction. In 1970, Colorado and New Mexico came together to purchase the 64-mile section between Chama and Antonito for $541,120. 

The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad first put down rails in 1870, under the command of Brig. Gen. William Palmer, a Union officer brevetted during the Civil War. Looking to save money, Palmer decided to build a narrow-gauge railroad with rails just 3 feet apart, as opposed to a standard-gauge railroad with rails built 4 feet, 8½ inches apart. The railroad reached Chama in 1880. Soon after, it was busy moving people, livestock and minerals to eastern markets.

Although narrow-gauge railroads were cheaper to build, there was a major downside to a 3-foot-gauge railroad: It was incompatible with most other railroads. Whenever a Denver & Rio Grande Western train reached the junction with another railroad, the freight had to be unloaded from the narrow-gauge cars and reloaded onto standard-gauge cars for the rest of its journey. By 1890, Palmer began widening parts of his railroad. However, the route through the San Juan Mountains kept its narrow track because the railroad’s executives did not see much potential for the line.

The train stops at Osier so passengers can disembark for lunch at a nearby mess hall and the locomotive takes on water. After the train pulls out of town and you’re looking out the window, you’re seeing the country as it was a century ago.”

This was a spectacular ride winding a dozen times in and out of New Mexico and Colorado through long forgotten towns and scenery untouched by man.

https://www.tourdesmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/img_0577.trim-1.mov

https://www.tourdesmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/img_0591.mov

This is where we’re headed

A view from up there

Open car

Snack car

https://www.tourdesmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/img_0753.mov

A stop in Osier for lunch

Reminders of towns that once were.

Chama RV Park – $32