There are some journeys where getting from one place to another is the boring part.
Day 5 of our Colorado road trip was one I had been looking forward to from the start. After four days behind the wheel, we left the SUV parked in Durango and handed transportation duties over to a bus, followed by a steam locomotive that has been making its way through these mountains for more than a century.
Our morning began with the bus from Durango to Silverton.
Before boarding the bus, we also spent some time at the railroad museum at the Durango depot, and it turned out to be an awesome start to the day. The place is packed with railroad history, old locomotives, vintage railcars, machinery and artifacts from the region’s mining and railroad days. Keanah had plenty to look at, and I could have easily spent much longer wandering around. Seeing the enormous locomotives up close also gave us a better sense of the engineering behind this railway. It was the perfect introduction to what was coming later, especially knowing that in a few hours we would be riding those historic tracks back through the San Juan Mountains ourselves.
We had driven the same stretch of the San Juan Skyway yesterday, crossing Coal Bank Pass and Molas Pass on our way south. I loved that drive, but sitting on the bus today gave me a completely different appreciation for it.
No watching the road. No thinking about the next curve. No checking the mirrors.
I could just sit there and look out the window.
And I absolutely loved it.
The mountains, the forests, the lingering fall colors and those enormous views around Molas Pass somehow felt different when someone else was doing the driving.
Before long, we were back in Silverton.
Lunch was at Lacey Rose Saloon, where we settled in for a relaxed meal before wandering around town for a while. Silverton has grown on me over these last couple of days. There is something about those old buildings sitting at more than 9,300 feet, surrounded on every side by the San Juan Mountains, that makes the place feel almost cut off from the rest of the world.
After lunch, we wandered around Silverton and found a few places that made the little mining town even more interesting. We stopped by the Silverton Harley-Davidson store, famously promoted as the world’s highest Harley-Davidson shop, sitting at more than 9,300 feet above sea level. From there we visited the Miners Shrine, a simple and moving tribute to the miners who worked these mountains and to those who lost their lives doing it. We also stopped at St. Patrick Catholic Church, a beautiful historic church that has been part of Silverton since the mining era. With the mountains rising behind the town and so much of its history still visible along the streets, it felt like we were getting a glimpse of the people who built their lives in this remote corner of Colorado long before the tourists and train rides arrived.
Dessert came next at Natalia’s.
Then it was time for the reason we had returned.
The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
At 2:15 PM, we climbed aboard in Silverton for the 45-mile journey back to Durango.
Calling it a train ride feels inadequate.
The railway between Durango and Silverton was completed in July 1882. Crews had begun construction only the previous fall, building roughly 45 miles of narrow-gauge track through terrain that even today feels difficult to access. The original purpose was practical. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway needed a way to move gold and silver ore out of the San Juan Mountains.
More than 140 years later, trains are still running along essentially the same corridor.
That history becomes much easier to appreciate once the train starts moving.
There is the whistle.
The rhythmic clatter of the wheels.
The smell and sound of the locomotive working its way through the mountains.
The railway follows the Animas River for much of the journey, crossing it five times between Silverton and Durango. For long stretches after leaving Silverton, there are no roads alongside you. Once the line passes Rockwood, much of the country toward Silverton is wilderness without motorized road access.
Suddenly we were seeing a completely different side of the San Juans.
Yesterday we had looked down into valleys from the Million Dollar Highway.
Today we were inside them.
The train twisted alongside the Animas River, through thick forest and beneath huge canyon walls. Sometimes the river was right beside us. A few minutes later it would appear far below.
The railway itself was fascinating to watch.
You could look ahead through a curve and see the locomotive pulling the coaches around the mountainside. On the tighter bends, almost the entire train came into view.
At other points, the track seemed to disappear into the wilderness ahead.
And then came the Highline.
This was the part I had been waiting for.
It was easily the highlight of the ride.
The train reaches a narrow shelf carved into the mountainside with the Animas River hundreds of feet below. The famous section rises roughly 400 feet above the river.
Sitting beside the window and looking down was something else.
There are moments when the edge of the track seems impossibly close to the drop. Across the canyon are layers of mountains and forest, while far below you can see the Animas winding through the gorge.
Then you remember that engineers were building a railway through here in 1881 and 1882.
With 19th-century equipment.
It makes the whole thing even more remarkable.
The train crawled through the Highline slowly enough for us to take it all in.
I took photos, of course.
Plenty of them.
But this was one of those places where I kept putting the phone down because looking at it through a screen felt like missing the point.
The Highline eventually gave way to Horseshoe Curve and the long descent toward the Animas Valley. The landscape gradually softened. The sheer canyon walls became forests, then wider valleys and eventually the familiar surroundings of Durango.
Even after more than three hours on the train, I wasn’t waiting for it to end.
I loved every bit of it.
The old coaches. The whistle echoing through the canyon. Watching the locomotive bend around curves ahead of us. The Animas River appearing and disappearing below. The bridges. The forest. Those stretches where there wasn’t a road, building or car anywhere in sight.
And especially the Highline.
Eventually Durango came back into view and our 45-mile journey through the San Juans was over.
Yesterday we drove these mountains.
Today we rode through places the highway never reaches, on rails first laid when Chester A. Arthur was President of the United States.
That’s a pretty incredible way to spend an afternoon.
And just as we were making our way into Durango, Colorado had one last little surprise waiting for us. A beautiful rainbow appeared across the evening sky. After hours of mountains, canyons, forests and the Animas River, seeing that rainbow as we rolled back into town felt like the perfect final scene. We all loved it. One of those completely unplanned moments that somehow becomes part of what you remember most about the day!
Colorado Road Trip, Day 5!
