Greetings From The Road in Colorado

[Don McRitchie]

A last minute approval to attend a work conference means that I arrived in Vail Colorado yesterday. The conference started this afternoon and runs to Wednesday morning. After that, I'm taking 10 days vacation and a rental car to tool around the mountains. I have internet access while at the conference, but that will likely end once I'm on my road trip. For now, here's a few pics from a brief morning trip

[Don McRitchie]

Here's I-70 heading into Vail. Colorado is really letting their Interstate highways go to crap :D

Actually, this is the approach to Hagerman Pass. I'm a rail fan and Hagerman Pass is an historic abandonned rail route. This is the actual rail bed that has been abandonned since 1921.

[Don McRitchie]

And here's the destination of the east approach of Hagerman pass, the portal to the 2 mile long Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel. Before this tunnel was built in 1893, the rail line continued overland over the pass. I was hoping to follow that old line over the pass, but as you can see, there's still a lot of snow up here and that part of the trail had not been plowed.

The locals tell me that this is one of the warmest May's in record in the mountains (around 80 degrees today). Still, there's 10' of snow at the top of the pass. This is one of the reasons the line was abandonned in 1921. It cost a fortune to keep it open in winter.

[Don McRitchie]

Here's the same pass heading back.

[Don McRitchie]

And heres a picture of the more civilized approach to Tennessee Pass. I say more civilized because it is accessed from a decent two lane paved highway.

[Don McRitchie]

And one final picture from the vicinity ot Tennessee Pass.

[johnaec]

Don - next time you go, give me a heads-up. My family has a nice little ski lodge in Breckenridge that sits empty most the time, jacuzzi and all. I'm sure arrangents could have been made to stay there. A short drive to Vail...

Ya' gonna' make it over to see John N. in Boulder?

John

[Don McRitchie]

Thanks for the offer John. I definitely plan to meet with John Nebel. I just made arrangements this evening to catch up with him on Wednesday.