Although it was never my planned intention to go back to discuss the United States in quadrants after revisiting many locations (with some new ones) in each area after many years, that’s what happened. It started innocently with a quick visit to some locations in the Alaska panhandle that I hadn’t seen, or hadn’t seen adequately, when we were there in 1970, at the end of our three-years of driving tours of all the US states and Canadian provinces. Then, gradually, I found myself discussing and visiting other quadrants of the continental US (plus a cross-Canada rail trip coast-to-coast, plus Mexico) and now all that remains is to revisit the Northwestern US and Hawai’i, both of which are part of this trip. Piece by piece, it all falls together.

This current trip became quite lengthy, eight weeks and one day, from late September to just before Thanksgiving, because it turned out to be a combination of four different trips, two for business, one for family, and then the real travel time. I first flew to the Dominican Republic for a week on Eden Bay business, including a visit to Santo Domingo. My first time to “la capital” on the south shore of the island was as part of a cruise (2004/19). This time getting there involved taking the very fast toll road south from near Nagua on the north shore, where Eden Bay is, the first time I actually crossed the island. I could have gone home after that business trip, but within a few days the annual condominium meeting was to take place at Eden Bay, so I stayed in the DR and went there as the second part of this trip for that. Staying a total of 16 nights in the DR was my second-longest time there.

What could have been a third separate trip involved stopping again in Minneapolis for a day to visit Beverly’s mother and others. While I was there, I drive downtown specifically to drive across the recently-completed bridge that replaced the one that collapsed a year ago. My connection from Puerto Plata was via Newark to Minneapolis, and, as frequently is the case, while munching a quesadilla and beer at the airport lounge I met someone interesting. Mark is a poet who, with a colleague, has translated Federico García Lorca, and was traveling to Minneapolis to promote his book. I was just about ready to post my previous Series on stress patterns and meter, and so the conversation there, and on the plane, took off. We discussed translation in general as well. Mark introduced me to Spanish alexandrines that García Lorca uses on occasion as well, which I now know consist of fourteen syllables with a break: seven syllables; a caesura; seven syllables. I said I’d remember that by remembering “seven-and-seven”, and then quipped that most people at a bar talking about “seven-and-seven” would have a drink in mind instead.

From Minneapolis I flew to Denver, which is where the fourth part of this trip started, the “real travel” part. It would involve visiting Denver and its area, taking the California Zephyr to San Francisco, driving north on the Pacific coast via Victoria to Seattle, flying to Hawai’i for an island cruise, plus stays in two locations, then flying back to Seattle to finish NW US by taking the Empire Builder (via Minneapolis again) to Chicago, plus the Lakeshore Limited back home to New York.

Denver   Where does the Northwest begin? Let me go back to the three travel routes west (2007/12). We discussed the southern route (Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe Railroad, Route 66) last year (2007/14-15-16). For our purposes here, we’ll consider the central and northern travel routes west (the central being a stepchild of the northern, anyway) as defining the area of the US Northwest, and we’ll travel most of the two rail routes mentioned above, which will essentially enclose the area in question, to say nothing of strikingly representing these two travel and settlement routes. Let’s start by discussing the Denver region and its striking geography.

Visualize an oval connecting Chicago to Dallas to Phoenix to Seattle and back to Chicago. Denver, at 2.3 million people, is the largest metropolis within this huge area, and is centrally located between those cities. It is the logical point to lay a central route, given that a southern and northern ones are already established. There is, however, a problem. But first let’s study the geography of this spectacular area, obvious to anyone arriving from the East, either overland, or, as I did, by plane from Minneapolis.

The eastern third of Colorado is still part of the Great Plains, and the airport is at the edge of those plains, approaching Denver. Coming in from the airport by van to Denver, especially on the clear day I had, you see The Wall. That’s my term for it. It’s the sudden beginning of the Rocky Mountains, the closest area of the which is referred to as the Front Range, which essentially tells it all. With the city visible in front of you, the is suddenly this Wall of darker mountains running north-south, forming this spectacular backdrop behind the city. And there are a couple of lengthy strips of white visible along the top of the Front Range, sort of like long, narrow strips of whipped cream floating on hot chocolate, and these are the snow-capped peaks hiding behind them. You don’t usually have a view like this in Switzerland, where you have to maneuver between the lower range to get a better view of the white peaks. You can do so in Colorado, but from the plains you have it all ready for you as a backdrop to Denver and its area. It is no coincidence that most Colorado cities line up north-to-south just east of The Wall: Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo.

Denver itself is known as the “Mile-High City”, because of its altitude of just 5,280 ft / 1609 meters. The Travel Cynic sayeth that that figure seems a bit contrived, given that there may be areas of Denver a foot or two higher or lower, and how odd they found an “official” location at just 5,280, but let’s not go there any more than that, and let them have their fun. Anyway, approaching the mountains, we already start out on this high plateau. Then comes this very large concentration of peaks above 4,000 m / 13,124 ft that we referred to in Switzerland as Viertausender / four-thousanders, forming a spectacular backdrop—and a spectacular barrier to proceeding further west. But let’s talk about Denver first.

Denver was founded in 1858 at the height of the silver-mining boom in the nearby mountains. This is also the two-decade period of founding of other cities I’ll be mentioning and that I visited such as Golden (1859), Leadville (1877), and Aspen (1879). It was founded by a certain William Larimer, a land speculator who named what was then the main street for himself and the city for James Denver, the governor of the Kansas Territory, of which the area was still a part (it became Colorado Territory two years later). Larimer did so to curry favor with Denver, but ironically, Denver had just resigned from office. So goes it.

Denver is an attractive city, especially given its location, but it is to me not a destination city. Absent the nearby mountains, a half-day’s walk around town is enough to enjoy much of what Denver has to offer, and that’s just what I gave myself. Beverly and I had been through the area in our first big loop drive through the West in 1968. We drove through nearby Rocky Mountain National Park in the fog, drove quickly through Denver, which had not yet orchestrated its revival, and then drove to the top of Pikes Peak. So much for Denver then, but now there was more to see.

Denver is one of those cities with grid problems. So is Minneapolis, and I’ll start by describing the situation there. In the Minneapolis downtown, all streets are parallel and perpendicular, but facing northeast toward the river. This gives the downtown what I call an X-shaped grid, with all the blocks being diamond-shaped on a map. While this should have been let alone, it was apparently decided at one point that all new streets built around downtown would run north-south and east-west. This is what I call a +-shaped grid, forming boxes. The problem is the transition area, where the diamonds clash with the boxes, and avenues that ran, say, NE-SW are bent to run N-S. It’s a confusion, especially with contemporary traffic.

Denver has the same problem. The downtown has an X-grid facing northwest. Surrounding that was established a +-grid. The diamond-shaped blocks clash with the square ones, and the streets all change direction. Help! Why didn’t they just let the X-grid grow naturally?

I mention this, not only because it’s a peculiarity of walking, and particularly, driving, in downtown Denver, but because it defines one of the most famous venues in the city, the Brown Palace Hotel, where dignitaries always stay. It’s a National Historic Landmark, and belongs to the Historic Hotels of America. And it’s triangular.

It didn’t get its name because it’s brown, although it is, built in Italian Renaissance style of brown sandstone and red granite, with much of the interior décor a very Victorian brown in color as well. It isn’t because Denver’s own “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, whose historic house I examined from the outside just a few blocks away, stayed at the Brown Palace just a week after she escaped the Titanic disaster. It’s because a man named Henry Brown had a triangular plot of land, due to the street grid problem.

The X-grid streets center on numbers in the upper teens, from about 14th Street to 20th, with about fifteen cross streets, Larimer among them, starting at Union Station, which is at the upper end of 17th facing it. Then suddenly the grid changes, with Broadway running N-S and all the numbered streets, which had been running SE, suddenly turning abruptly east. And where 17th and Tremont get suddenly cut off by Broadway is the famous triangular plot. He got the architect that had built the Oxford Hotel near the station the year before (see below) to build his hotel in 1892 (making the Brown Palace the second oldest in Denver). He spent $1.6 million, an exorbitant sum for the day. Most spectacular on entering is the nine-story atrium lobby under a glass canopy to let light in, the first atrium-style hotel ever built, with wrought-iron grilles on every balcony. There is a harpist in the lobby during afternoon tea. And the hotel from the beginning has piped water into every room from its own 720 ft / 219 m artesian well.

The signature restaurant of the Brown Palace is the Palace Arms, and I have a curious report to give regarding it. Although I pointed out on entering the restaurant that I was disappointed they didn’t display their menu (if you’re proud of it, post it!), everything else could have been the major dining experience of the trip. The room had baronial wood paneling, the service was professional and charming, the food—what there was of it—was exquisite. The cheese course with 20-year-old port I ordered was lavish. The home-baked bread they served was ideal. The cherry-walnut rolls were so good, I ordered more (I just had to). They had an amuse-bouche to start of a pumpkin soup in a shot glass which was outstanding. With everything as outstanding as it was, when they offered a comment card, I said I wouldn’t recommend the restaurant—and I’m not doing so, unless you understand the following caveat (maybe you’ve picked up on the hints).

I remember quite clearly what I ordered. I chose a garlic soup as a starter. It was served in a large soup bowl in the shape of an upside-down cone. If you looked way down into the point of the cone, you found some soup. If it had been put into a cup, the cup might have been 1/3 full. I joked on the comment card that it was barely more than the amuse-bouche pumpkin soup in the shot glass. As I main course I chose sea scallops. I got three decent-size scallops riding on a thin slice of toast not any larger than the three scallops, surrounded by drops of three sauces. This was a main course.

That these courses were substantially priced is not the issue, since price has to become a non-issue in a very high-quality restaurant—either that, or you don’t go. And the food, service, and surroundings were top-notch. I will just not be made a fool of, which is what I wrote on the comment card.

Think of the Emperor who had been advised that his new “invisible” clothes were the latest fashion. Everyone was told this, and everyone began to believe it, until the little boy said that the Emperor has no clothes. I suspect that too many people who put up with this nonsense at this and other venues force themselves to believe that that’s how “nice” restaurants do it. Balderdash. The emperor has no clothes. The next night I had a reuben and beer at the adjoining Palace Bar and talked to a guy from London who works for Ernst & Young and is temporarily assigned to Denver. His family had just arrived. I enjoyed the meal and company, and had enough to eat without filling up on cherry-walnut rolls. Caveat emptor.

My half-day stroll through Denver that first day was simple, but enjoyable. There has been a downtown revival since our first drive-through years ago. 16th Street has been made into a park-like mall from the State Capitol all the way to Union Station, with free shuttle buses coming by every minute or so. You get on and off to see some historic sites along the way, including Larimer Square. This is a one-block of Larimer Street that has a substantial number of historic commercial structures, now converted after the long period of decline into shops and cafés. This development spurred the revival of the area from here to Union Station, called Lower Downtown or LoDo, including the historic Oxford Hotel.

Of the many historic signs of interest in the streets of Denver, I’ll mention one. It included a picture of a streetcar, and standing on its rear platform, perpendicular to the length of the car, was a horse. I had to stop to see what it was all about. I knew that before there were (electric) streetcars, or even cable cars, there were horsecars. This was essentially a non-motorized streetcar on tracks, which was pulled by a horse. One particular route in Denver went up a hill, up which the horse dutifully pulled the streetcar. But on the return trip, the streetcar just coasted on its brakes, and the horse wasn’t needed. And so it rode downhill on the back platform. Makes sense to me.

Pikes Peak   The next day I picked up my rental car for a few days. Unfortunately, Hertz, although nearby, is located on a cross street at 20th and Broadway (more triangles!), right in the worst of the tangle, which of course includes one-way streets. I needed directions how to get out, but did find my way back, with trouble, on return. The purpose of this first day of rental was to drive south just over an hour and turn westward a short distance at Colorado Springs to reach Manitou Springs, from which the Pikes Peak Cog Railway goes up the mountain, so here we need some background.

The Swiss talk about Viertausender/four-thousanders, mountains higher than 4000 meters (13,124 ft). In Colorado they talk about fourteeners (which would be Vierzehner), mountains that are over 14,000 ft (4,267 m). That makes a fourteener a bit higher (7%) than a four-thousander. So, are you ready for the statistic? There are 54 fourteeners in Colorado. Nowhere in the continental US are there mountains as high as the Colorado Rockies, which dominate the western 2/3 of the state beyond the eastern plains. This is the barrier behind (to the west of) Denver. But this is also what makes visiting this area so spectacular. In addition, just as we talked recently of the rivers that flow out of the Alps, three of North America’s six longest rivers start in the Colorado Rockies. I passed the Colorado River as it came out of Rocky Mountain National Park to the west on its way through the Grand Canyon to the Gulf of California and the Pacific; the Arkansas River flowing near Leadville from Mount Elbert as it flowed east to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico; and last year, I saw in New Mexico where the Rio Grande flowed south out of the Colorado Rockies also on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Next surprise. Pikes Peak is not the highest mountain in Colorado. Or even near it. As a matter of fact, at 14,115 ft / 4,302 m it’s merely the 31st highest out of the 54. Bummer. So what’s so special? As any real estate agent will tell you: location, location, location. Pikes Peak isn’t hidden behind other mountains, it’s a fourteener right on the edge of the Front Range. Pikes Peak is the most VISIBLE of the fourteeners. It sits, very accessible, right at the edge of the Great Plains. Its proximity and imposing height made it the first sight wagon trains saw who were coming to this area over the plains. Being able to see one’s destination in the distance, spurring one on, led to the expression used in the late 1850’s “Pikes Peak or Bust!”, in other words, “we can already SEE our destination, so we HAVE to make it now!”.

Driving the 77 mi / 124 km south from Denver along the Front Range I still got a feeling that must have been similar to what those in the wagon trains saw, even though I was driving south and they were going west. After driving over a sudden rise in the interstate, THERE IT WAS! And I didn’t even have to bust.

There are two ways to get to the top. In 1968, coming down from Denver, we took the newer way, the 1916 toll motor road that runs 19 mi / 31 km to the top. I remember very little of that ride. I don’t think we got too much of a view because of the weather, but what I do remember clearly is being constantly warned not to overbrake going down. There were workers pulling you over and feeling your brakes to see if they were overheated, then asking you to park to cool them off if so.

But this time I took the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, officially the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway. Its first train ran in 1891 based on the efforts of its founder, Zalman Simmons. His name will become more familiar when you hear that he was the same Simmons of the Simmons Mattress Co. At 8.9 mi / 14.3 km, it is the longest rack railway in the world (this refers to those that are exclusively rack, not a mixture of rack and adhesion). The maximum grade is 25%. When it was time to upgrade the coaches some years ago, General Electric wasn’t interested, so today one travels on Swiss coaches made in Winterthur.

The lower station in Manitou Springs, at 6,571 ft / 2,003 m is already higher than Denver and climbs to the summit, again at 14,115 ft / 4,302 m. That upper station, at Summit House, makes this the highest rack railway in the world, and the highest railway of any kind in North America. The station at the Jungfraujoch was at 11,332 ft / 3,454 m, making it the highest station of any kind in Europe. The highest rail track (not station) of any kind anywhere is in Tibet, at 16,640 ft / 5,072 m.

The round trip was close to 3.5 hours, including 40 minutes at the top, where it was 36°F / 2°C. I asked the conductor how long the rack rails last, and the answer was very interesting. They last 5-7 years, depending on how steep the section is where the piece of track is located. The steeper, the more strain, and the faster they wear out. Also, it’s the uphill side of each tooth that gets the wear, because the train first pulls itself up, then lets itself down, and the pressure both ways is always on the same side of the tooth. Once he said that and you looked out of the train, you could clearly see the metal spurs on the uphill sides of the teeth because of the pressure. After the 5-7 years, the rails are not discarded. They are simply turned around, and what had been the downhill side becomes a fresh uphill side of each tooth. The same is true of the cog under the engine, which is reversed once it wears. I had wrongly assumed there was no lubrication, but as each train goes by, a lubricant is sprayed on the cog and on the entire rack. It contains graphite for traction, and the precise blend varies according to the time of year, just like motor oil for a car.

The Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway was named a National Historic Engineering Landmark in 1976 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

As we approached the top, it became apparent that most of the route had been up a neighboring mountain. Then, near the top, we crossed the saddle / Joch that connected this mountain to Pikes Peak proper. For the first time on this narrow saddle, you could see both east and west, which was thrilling, especially given the clear weather. Shortly after, we pulled up next to the auto road, then arrived at the summit as it did as well. The weather was perfect, and you could see forever in all directions.

I have read that going up 1000 ft / 305 m on any mountain is like going 600 mi / 966 km north.

Zebulon Pike, a soldier and explorer from New Jersey, first sighted this mountain in 1806. He never climbed it, and called it “unconquerable”. A similar snide remark could be made here as with the Jungfrau / “Virgin”, but again, I won’t go there. As for the name, it’s rather unique. Very few mountains have “peak” in their name (unless you’re specifically speaking of one of its peaks, such as the Dufourspitze / Dufour Peak of Monte Rosa). Why wasn’t this called Mount Pike or Pike Mountain? Probably because of the duplication of sounds in similar words in P---K P---K, and not because of any meaning.

Finally, on a musical note (pun intended) there’s something very interesting that few people realize. In 1893, Katherine Lee Bates, a former English professor at Wellesley who was teaching summer school at Colorado Springs, visited Pikes Peak, coming up the coach road that is still visible at the top from the train, since tracks in the tundra last a long time. (Why she took the coach and not the new railroad I don’t know.) She was inspired by the specific geography of the Front Range in Colorado: the open sky above, the view east across the plains, and the view west to the other mountains. And so she wrote “America the Beautiful”, describing the view from Pikes Peak, which remains the legacy of this mountain, at the top of which is a monument to Bates. The first four lines describe the view:

It’s all about Pikes Peak and the Colorado Rockies.

Golden & Rocky Mountain National Park   The excellent fall weather held out to the next day as well, which was my day to cross over Rocky Mountain National Park again (again meaning for the first time in forty years, since 1968). The park is located in the Front Range roughly the same distance north of Denver as Pikes Peak had been south. This time I would cross it in the opposite direction, westward, and in good weather.

Golden is just about 20 minutes west of Denver, hard by the foothills. Michelin had suggested doing the park drive as a rectangle starting in Golden, that is, driving north, west through the park, south, then east, back past Golden. The error I almost made was to decide to skip Golden itself, which didn’t seem to have that much to offer. As a matter of fact, I did skip the exit for Golden on the bypass road. But then something told me to turn around and go back. I hadn’t eaten yet that morning, and was interested in a cup of coffee and pastry, so why not try Golden? What luck I did.

It was a sunny and warm fall Sunday morning as I pulled into the lower end of the former silver town. Driving up the main street, I could see shops and small cafés with people relaxing and enjoying the morning. I stopped at the Windy Saddle Café (really) for a latte and home-made apple-pumpkin muffin. It was a Sunday morning I’ll remember. On leaving, I noted a sign about brewery tours. Silly me. Of course. Golden is where Coors beer comes from. On the edge of town, not looking out of place at all, is the huge Coors brewery, which Adolph Coors founded in 1873. I also read that Golden lost out to Denver to become the capital of Colorado by one vote. That sounds a bit contrived, but could be true.

Driving that rectangle to the park was nice, but not overly spectacular. First you go north to the resort of Estes Park, where you turn west to enter the National Park. I had with me, and used, the $10 lifetime senior National Park pass I bought last year, since vehicles even just passing through the park to go somewhere else have to pay the fee (the road, “Trail Ridge Road”, over several passes, is a public highway, US 36). The views from the road going up to the main pass were rather nice. Early on was a nice viewpoint over a valley and up to the flat top of Longs Peak, a fourteener at 14,259 ft / 4,346 m, and the highest in the park.

The road through the park is not always open, and in the winter, people have to be content with visiting the park from either end, but not passing through. I was fully aware that this road was marked on maps as closed from mid-October to June, and the date was already 19 October, but it was still open, with the nice weather we’d been having. So up I went over the winding road, whose highest point was at 12,183 ft / 3,713 m.

While still within the park, the road turns south, and at Milner Pass (10,758 ft / 3,279 m) you go over the continental divide. From Alaska to Cape Horn, water flows from these mountains west to the Pacific. From one side of Milner Pass, for example, Beaver Creek flows into the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon, and into the Gulf of California and the Pacific. From the other side of the pass, Cache la Poudre River flows to the Platte, to the Missouri, to the Mississippi, and to the Gulf of Mexico.

[Digression: Do understand that continental divides in the mountains form drainage basins, but drainage basins can also simply be a rise in land level enough so that water flows in two directions. To picture drainage basins in Europe, where there are three, picture a zig-zag line running from Spain diagonally across the Alps and into Russia. Everything southeast of this line flows into the Mediterranean/Black Sea, from eastern Spain, southern France, Italy, the Balkans, into Ukraine. Northwest of this line, water drains into the Baltic and Atlantic. The dividing line having reached Russia then swings back surrounding Finland and Sweden and southern Norway, so that these latter areas are also included in the Baltic drainage basin, but western Norway is then included in the Arctic drainage basin that continues east through most of northern Russia.

North America has four drainage basins. Already described is the one going to the Pacific, also the huge central one centering on the Mississippi River and flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. The line separating the Atlantic drainage basin from this latter one cuts north through Florida and then the Appalachian Mountains, then swings west to include the Great Lakes and then runs east north of the Saint Lawrence River. Everything east of this line flows into the Atlantic. Finally in the north is the Arctic drainage basin, mostly in Canada, but affecting the US in two places. One is northern Alaska, where water flows north. The Arctic basin also reaches into the lower 48 states in the Minnesota/Dakota area, where the Red River of the North flows, as the name says, north. Minnesota would be a good example of, not a continental divide but of a division of drainage basins. Just look at a map of Minnesota and decide where some rivers flow east into the Mississippi and where others flow west into the Red River and you can draw a line between the two watersheds. But this line dividing watersheds would not be a continental divide, which always implies mountains.]

The drive south from the park continued along the early Colorado River, then I had some spectacular views of white-capped mountain ridges. Finally I went over another pass crossing back over the continental divide, and then east on Interstate 70. Then, approaching Golden, I decided it was too nice not to visit again. Why eat in Denver when I could go back to Golden for dinner? This is where a bit of serendipity does enter into my plans, and off I went. Where the main street crossed Clear Creek was a nice Italian restaurant, where the waiter turned out to be from Queens Village, next to where I grew up in Hollis, Queens. I’m convinced there are no locals anywhere anymore. Everyone is from somewhere else. Anyway, with dinner I had to have some Coors beer, and he said there was a special “old-time” brew of Coors called Barmen, which I ordered. But the name intrigued me. Did the name refer somehow to bartenders? That didn’t make too much sense. So I looked it up. First, Adolph Coors had respelled his name for use in the US. He was born Kuhrs in Germany. And he was born in Barmen, which today is a part of Wuppertal.

Aspen   My third and final foray out of Denver and into the mountains would be overnight, then returning to Denver: I wanted to spend two nights in Aspen. So off I went again west down the same Interstate 70, then cutting south to Leadville, high up in the mountains and near the source of the Arkansas River, which I crossed several times. Leadville was another silver mining town. In the late 1800’s only Denver was more populous in Colorado. At 10,152 ft / 3094 m, it’s the highest incorporated city in the US and the second highest municipality in the US. It has a historic district, and its main street tries, but I’m afraid I was less than enthusiastic. I even tried a mocha and cinnamon bun in a café, but could not get too enthusiastic about the town. But then to its advantage, Leadville is the back door to Aspen.

Leadville is south of I-70, and further west, so is Aspen. Either one backtracks to I-70 to visit both, or one goes directly between them, over Independence Pass. But we are in the High Country and that could be a problem, since Independence Pass notoriously closes in mid-October, and by now, it was already 20 October. Not only were there signs locally in Leadville about the pass, there was a even a sign way back on the interstate referring to it. But fortunately, the sign at the Leadville exit on the interstate said: Independence Pass—OPEN. The weather was still holding out, so off I went. [By the way, compare the term “Berner Oberland” in Switzerland with the term “Colorado High Country”.]

Leaving Leadville to the south, the first thing you see is the appropriately named Mount Massive (it really is—it fills the entire visual space you’re looking at), at 14,421 ft / 4396 m, Colorado’s second highest. But then just south of that is Mount Evans, Colorado’s highest—just barely higher—at 14,433 ft / 4399 m. Then the route over Independence Pass cuts west to Aspen right past Mount Evans. The weather held out going up to the pass at 12,095 ft / 3680 m, where I walked around with other people at the windy top. Just as I was leaving, the flurries started. People asked me later in Aspen if I encountered flurries up on Independence Pass, so I suppose it isn’t uncommon. Still, I was glad as I worked my way down the Aspen side and into town via the “back door”.

I am so glad I decided to go to Aspen. I will first dismiss Aspen (and Vail) as ski resorts. If people like to go there for that reason, so be it, but I measure places as being destinations for their own character and charm. (And as I found out later, Vail loses on that score.) Aspen, lying in a valley, is about five streets wide and 4-5 times greater in length than in width as it runs down the valley. Aspen has character through age. It was founded as a silver mining town during the Colorado Silver Boom that began with the discovery of silver in Leadville in 1879. It’s present population is about 5800. I understand there is a large number of celebrities who own homes in or around Aspen, and I can understand why. The place seems real. However, there is also a level of non-reality in the town. It has one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country. The average house price has surpassed $6 million, and it’s a well-known fact that workers that work in Aspen can’t afford to live there, and have to commute. Knowing this, I expected the streets to be “paved with gold”, but it gives the impression of a “just folks” town. Or at least one that just happens to have some of the glitziest world-class boutiques around. Still, most of the stores I remember seeing sold sports clothes, and most shops and restaurants were in recycled older buildings. It was a pleasure to walk through town. I read that there was a three-block pedestrian mall, but was surprised to see that the three blocks ran around one city block on three sides, like a backwards C.

The weather changes started for me in Aspen. After arriving from Leadville over Independence Pass (the flurries were only intermittent there), it at first rained heavily in Aspen, then, over the two days I was there, the sun came out, and then there were some snow flurries. It was “real” weather. The town was relatively quiet, since it was off season, and I liked it that way. I walked the streets admiring all the trees with yellow leaves fluttering in the autumn breeze until it struck me. Stupid! These are aspen trees! That’s how the town got its name! Aspens, also called quaking aspens, are a variety of poplar, which in turn is a variety of willow, which means we’re talking about brittle wood. I now read that scientists believe that aspen leaves “quake” in the wind to dissipate the wind, making the breaking of brittle branches less likely. The streets were covered with wet, yellow leaves, and I couldn’t help thinking once again about Les feuilles mortes / Autumn Leaves (2007/17).

I had chosen another historic hotel for my two nights in Aspen, the Hotel Jerome from 1889 (Historic Hotels of America, National Register of Historic Places). It was built right on Main Street during the peak of the silver boom. It’s very Victorian and is filled with antiques. It was built by Jerome Wheeler, who was the owner of Macy’s. It was a rather petite brick building, although in a recent restoration, a large new extension had been added out back. The interior spaces were handled well in the restoration; for instance an outside courtyard was domed over with glass to make a larger lobby area. I got a large upstairs room facing Main Street, and I felt I could watch life going by as I worked most of the day on my laptop. Both mornings I walked down Main Street a block to have breakfast in a very cozy, homey café, where all the patrons looked like “just folks” (so where’s glitzy Aspen?) I also had occasion to visit Carl’s drugstore on Main Street both mornings. Although it was an illusion, I felt as though I fit into the town.

The last day, when I had to drive back to Denver, there were reports of snow, so once again: real life! The morning was bright and sunny as I drove down the valley to where it joined the Interstate 70 corridor at Glenwood Springs. This was a very pleasant town that I drove about a little, since it attracted me. It was a favorite of Theodore Roosevelt. I took a peek at the grand rail station, knowing that the train I’d be on would be stopping there the next day, as the rail route doubled back on the end of my driving route.

I had read that the first stretch of the ride back on I-70 was spectacular, through Glenwood Canyon, and it was, for 18 mi / 29 km. On the south side of the gorge you could see the single-track main rail line, in the center was the Colorado River, and on the north side, Interstate 70 had been cantilevered into the canyon wall to do the least damage to the canyon. Actually, each roadway was cantilevered separately, and it was a spectacular ride.

Then, of course, the sun disappeared and the snow started, but the weather kept changing every five minutes. But when I stopped in Vail, it was snowing.

I will be charged with seeing what I wanted to see, but I fully believe that Vail is a Disneyland, and has all the charm (??) of one. Vail dates only from 1963 and grew up around a ski resort and slope. If anything, it had the benefit of having an attractive, light layer of snow as I drove through it an down some streets, but the roads all had pretty paving blocks, and winded artificially. The houses all looked like chalets, and the shopping street in Vail Village looked like something out of Hansel and Gretel. It looked manufactured and was cute, cute, cute. It looked like the little village in a snow globe. When you flip it, it snows, just like it was snowing in Vail. I think it can be safely said I did not particularly like Vail. Although many people like it, it’s an Aspen wannabe. Did I just see what I’d expected to see? Yes, exactly, and that’s the problem. Rah Aspen!

We will be talking shortly of the routes reaching west from Denver, including the Moffat tunnel for trains, but the road route needs to be mentioned as well. I went through the Eisenhower Tunnel both ways, going to Leadville and coming back from Aspen/Glenwood Springs/Vail. The 1973 tunnel is on I-70 60 mi / 100 km west of Denver and it goes under the Continental Divide, avoiding Loveland Pass (11,992 ft / 3655 m), although you can ride uphill to cross at the pass if you prefer. The tunnel is 1.7 mi / 2.7 km long. It’s at the amazing altitude of 11,158 ft / 3401 m, and is not only the highest point on any interstate highway, it’s the highest road tunnel in the world. That’s the Colorado High Country for you.

I got back to Denver uneventfully, returned the car, and they shuttled me over to my hotel, which I had chosen because it was historic, but also rail related. It was the Oxford Hotel (Historic Hotels of America, National Register of Historic Places), a half block from Union Station.

The railroads arrived in Denver in 1870, and what now is LoDo (the Lower Downtown area) developed around the station. 17th Street ran down from the front of the station, and the Oxford was built ½ block down 17th Street to serve rail travelers. By 1890, Denver was the third largest city in the west after San Francisco (understandable) and Omaha (a surprise, especially since Omaha is as far east as it is, but I suppose it was a cowtown). The architect that designed the Oxford in 1891 went to build the Brown Palace in 1892, so you can take from that what you will. But with the decline of rail travel the Oxford declined, along with the rest of LoDo, which is how Beverly and I saw Denver in 1968. But during the 1960’s the revival of Larimer Square spread to all of LoDo, so you see it as it is today. There was a wood fire in the Oxford lobby, and self-serve Grand Marnier there in the late afternoon.

California Zephyr   We’ve discussed generally the three routes to the Pacific through the United States (2007/12), and last year I took the southern travel route, driving part of that distance, including on Route 66, and returned via rail on the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago. On this current trip, I’ll be going west on the central route and returning east on the northern route. I also said that the central route was the stepchild of the others, since Denver was reached over the plains, Salt Lake City was reached by the Mormon Trail, which was a spur of the Oregon Trail, and Reno, the California goldfields, and San Francisco were reached by the California Trail, another spur off the Oregon. So why did no trail develop in the center? Again, it was foreign territory. The Santa Fe Trail only went as far as it did since it was crossing into international territory, and the situation was the same in the center. After the Mexican War (1846-8) though, these areas became part of the US and became US travel routes, the southern one eventually reaching a tiny Los Angeles. Although there was no central trail, when a move developed to build a trans-continental US rail route, the central route was the one chosen. So why the center?

You will never get the answer to questions like these by looking at today’s maps--as a matter of fact, you will be totally misled. You need to look at a map of the US West from the period, say the 1860’s. If you’re building a trans-continental rail line from the Midwest, where do you aim at? Los Angeles? A village. Portland or Seattle? Barely being founded in this period (the same for Vancouver in Canada). There is only one west coast metropolis at this time, and its name is San Francisco! Aside from it being a major port, its growth had been assured by the arrival of the Forty-Niners during the California Gold Rush. There may have been several possible eastern links, but the only logical link on the Pacific was San Francisco.

The period we are looking at is roughly that of the Civil War. By then, the period of whatever westward trails there were was waning, and it was long before 20C highways replaced, and supplemented, those trails. Routes to the West, the West at this point largely referring to San Francisco, were largely by water, and included the long voyage by ship around Cape Horn, or the shorter one to Panama, then overland, then by ship again. By this time the overland trail in Panama between ports had been replaced by the 48 mi / 77 km Panama Railroad, built in 1855 as a result of the California gold rush. Even given its relatively short distance, it was the first transcontinental railroad in North America, which Beverly and I crossed on our visit there (2004/4).

Midwestern railroads in this period had reached Omaha, then a major hub, as mentioned earlier. In California, railroads had reached from San Francisco to Sacramento, but not further east, since the Sierra Nevada mountains between there and the Lake Tahoe and Reno area were considered impassable to railroads. And there lay the impasse. Railroad connections, if they could be built, would be the fastest and easiest overland route. But that can be easily said with hindsight. In the period, no one thought it could be done.

The exception to that is Theodore Judah. He was the chief engineer for the Central Pacific Railroad, which then ran in California only east to Sacramento. Judah (his surname is related to names like Jude, Judas, Yehudah) thought he could lay track over the Sierra Nevada. He even made up plans beyond that to reach Omaha. For this he was referred to as Crazy Judah, which is what often happens to visionaries.

Judah, though successful in the long run, had a tragic story. In Sacramento he went to the Big Four, Leland Stanford, CP Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, people whose names remain to this day in California in universities, museums, hotels, and banks. With their financing, Judah lobbied in Washington for the Pacific Railway Act to build a transcontinental railroad, which was passed during the Civil War in 1862. Once that was done, the Big Four marginalized Judah and Crocker took over building the railroad, essentially using Judah’s plans. Judah died on a trip to New York to look for financing to buy out the Big Four. He died in 1863 at about age 37 of yellow fever, then referred to as “Panama fever”. It is highly ironic that the planner of the first transcontinental railroad in the US died because of a trip on the first transcontinental railroad across North America anywhere, and while on a railroad mission at that.

That first transcontinental railroad was completed just after the Civil War, in 1869. It was a major event, rightly so, when the last spike was ceremoniously driven in Promintory Summit, Utah on 10 May of that year as the Union Pacific out of Omaha joined the Central Pacific out of Sacramento. Thus the central route to the Pacific was the first one that became a rail route.

A little over a decade later, in 1882, the Santa Fe connected Atchison, Kansas with California, and the next year, 1883, the Southern Pacific connected New Orleans with California, thus completing two branches of the southern rail route.

That same year, 1883, the Northern Pacific connected Chicago and Seattle, and a decade later, in 1893, Great Northern’s James J. Hill connected Saint Paul with Seattle, completing the two branches of the northern rail route.

But, major event as the first route was through the center, we have to look at it more carefully to see just where it went. After successfully crossing the Sierra Nevada going east, it did reach Reno and then Utah, which meant it was following the California, Mormon, and Oregon Trails to some extent. But then it went on to Omaha connecting little of significance in between.

Since there are really only a limited number of travel routes available through the mountains, one can learn from current interstate highways. Follow I-80 from San Francisco to Sacramento to Reno, then watch it swing north through Wyoming and Nebraska to Omaha. This is where the original transcontinental railroad ran on the central travel route. It didn’t reach Denver because it didn’t enter Colorado. Why not? To avoid the Colorado High Country. While I-80 does stop in Salt Lake City, the railroad bypassed it to the north. The concern at the time was to connect east and west and not to service the two major cities in the region in between, which had to put up with feeder lines.

Now follow I-70 westward across the plains and see it reach Denver, then actually cut through the Colorado High Country to central Utah. The route through the Colorado High Country that I-70 does today is what the improved passenger rail connection eventually did. Also note that while I-70 does not swing up to Salt Lake City directly once it enters Utah, the improved rail connection did.

Just as the Eisenhower Tunnel of 1973 made the crossing of the Colorado High Country more feasible for I-70, the Moffat Tunnel under the continental divide in 1928 allowed the railroad to break through this barrier. Up until then, Denver had its back up against a wall, the Front Range. To go west from Denver one first went north or south to avoid the mountains. The Moffat Tunnel finally provided Denver with a western link and cut the distance from Denver to the Pacific coast by 176 mi / 283 km. The east portal of the tunnel is 50 mi / 80 km west of Denver, and the tunnel is 6.2 mi / 10 km long. The rail route leaves Denver a little north of the interstate route, but then joins it later in Glenwood Canyon.

Amtrak’s three routes connecting Chicago to the west, all of which I’ve ridden at least once in the past, are the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles (2007/16), the Empire Builder to Seattle/Portland, which I’ll be returning on again this trip from Seattle, and the California Zephyr to San Francisco. I’ve ridden the Zephyr’s full length I think twice in the past, but on this trip I’ll be taking it through its most scenic area, the very one we’ve been discussing, Denver to San Francisco.

The name is a remnant of something larger. After the depression, the Burlington Railroad tried to revive interest in travel. It established several streamlined trains using the name Zephyr, after the West Wind (2007/11, Canterbury Tales, line 5: “Whan Zephyrus, eek, with his sweete breeth…”). These included the Nebraska Zephyr, Twin Cities Zephyr, and the longest route, the California Zephyr, which is the only survivor today, under Amtrak.

[Not fully pertinent to the narrative, but possibly of interest, is the fact that this entire trip to the Northwest had been built around a trip I had scheduled on GrandLuxe Rail. That was the successor company to the American Orient Express, and had taken over all its historic coaches. It was to take a full week from Denver to San Francisco, making many stops along the way, all the while living on the train. I had accordingly scheduled time and hotel stops before and afterward. However, during the summer I was informed the company was going out of business. I’ve gotten all but my deposit back, and am waiting to see how that works out, but I then had to reschedule. I added time at both the Denver end and Pacific Coast end to make up for the extra week, since the California Zephyr goes directly and takes just one night. I’m actually pleased at having the extra time, such as the full extra day in Aspen.]

Leaving the Oxford Hotel in Denver and walking the half block to the station for the morning connection to the Zephyr I met an interesting couple that I chatted with before the train left and at meals the first day. She had established and run a high school near me in New York. I meet so many interesting people traveling. The Zephyr had left Chicago at 2 PM the previous day and had crossed the plains of Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska (notably Omaha) before entering Colorado. Some time after leaving Denver we went through the Moffat Tunnel, and a while after that we went down Glenwood Canyon, having joined I-70. It was fun watching the road from the train, just as I had watched the train tracks from the road just the day before. I also got out at the stop at Glenwood Springs, where I had stopped at the station the day before.

A bit of bad luck turned out to be good luck. When there were two of us, we always enjoyed taking the more spacious full bedroom, with its private toilet and shower, but it’s expensive for one person, so I was riding in a tiny roomette. Early on, the sliding door to the roomette jammed; nothing could be done, so I was upgraded to a bedroom for the rest of the trip.

Overnight we crossed Utah and stopped at Salt Lake City. The next morning we were in Nevada and later stopped at Reno. As we entered California, there were announcements of the history of the difficulty of building the railroad across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. After Sacramento it wasn’t too long before the train arrived at its last stop, Emeryville, a suburb of Oakland., since trains from the east over time never made it all the way to San Francisco, but terminated in the East Bay area. Historically, this is the point where travelers took a ferry across to San Francisco, but today there’s free a shuttle bus to drive you over the Bay Bridge into town.