Amtrack from Provo to Denver (2011)

[Kerkphil]

Back in 2005, when I first went to Seoul to teach, I met Eddy Berry, a professor at Utah State University. She told me about taking Amtrak from Salt Lake City to Denver and I decided if I ever got the chance I was going to take the trip too.

Since the annual American Economics Association Meeting were in Denver in January 2011, I decided that Yeongmi and I would get there by train. The trip was a lot longer than driving, but the scenery was fantastic.

View from the Train Trip to Denver

We left Provo very early in the morning on Thursday - around 4:00 a.m., if I remember correctly. Since it was mid-Winter we didn't see the sun come up for quite a while and we were already over the mountains and near Price before we could see anything through the windows. We missed all of Spanish Fork Canyon and Price Canyon, but the canyons later in the day in Colorado made up for that.

The trip took 14 or 15 hours, but we went through country that was so scenic it was worth the trip. Much of this was through places where it would be impossible to get to in a car. Even in the parts that could be seen by car, sitting in the train and not driving made it so much easier to enjoy the scenery.

Take a look at the video below to see some of what we saw.

Google Earth viewable .kmz file of tracks and places on the trip.

[clikrf8]

My daughter and I took the Zephyr from Chicago to Grand Junction/Grand Junction to San Francisco. Beautiful ride. The trains often go through parts of the country near secondary roads or none at all. I take the train each summer from Seattle to Red Wing, MN to shoot a rock festival. We pass through Glacier N P. Thanks for sharing.

[Eric Holden]

Great report, but while watching the video I think the peyote was kicking in!