Amtrak's Empire Builder train - which takes mainly students, retirees, and people afraid of flying from Seattle to Chicago and back (and dropped us in between at Whitefish, Montana for a five day ski trip) - managed to finally deliver us back home yesterday, a mere seven hours late.
We had one day of beautiful sunshine and blue sky, and the rest of the time the blizzard didn't stop us from going outside to back country ski. We had more powder than we knew what to do with. My brother-in-law Richard had a great time snowboarding at Big Mountain, but the conditions weren't ideal for skate skiing - which we tried our last day at Isaac Walton Inn, a really neat historic train depot.
After many winter ski vacations that involved all-day, white-knuckle driving over stormy mountain passes, my family hoped that the train would be a magic bullet that could safely and comfortably get us to our destination despite severe December snow storms.
An electrical problem, a frozen baggage compartment door blow-torched and left open so that snow soaked all bags & clothing, a frozen horn that had to be thawed to warn towns of the approaching train, a derailed BNSF freight train, and a faulty engine later, we discovered that trains are just as - if not more - susceptible to winter travel delays.
An electrical problem, a frozen baggage compartment door blow-torched and left open so that snow soaked all bags & clothing, a frozen horn that had to be thawed to warn towns of the approaching train, a derailed BNSF freight train, and a faulty engine later, we discovered that trains are just as - if not more - susceptible to winter travel delays.I took two fantastic Amtrak trips earlier this year, from Seattle to Vancouver, BC in February and Seattle to Portland in October. I'm glad that the Empire Builder wasn't my first (and potentially last) experience!
Skiing the first six miles of Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park was a major highlight of the trip. Seeing the national park in the winter, covered in six feet of snow and nearly deserted, was a real treat. We learned that The Shining used Glacier as a shoot location - yipes! And that one backdrop from the "running-across-the-country" scene in Forrest Gump is Glacier...and incidentally, Tom Hanks' younger brother, Jim Hanks, stood in for him as Forrest (with a long beard) running.
We had one day of beautiful sunshine and blue sky, and the rest of the time the blizzard didn't stop us from going outside to back country ski. We had more powder than we knew what to do with. My brother-in-law Richard had a great time snowboarding at Big Mountain, but the conditions weren't ideal for skate skiing - which we tried our last day at Isaac Walton Inn, a really neat historic train depot.
Anna, Molly, Kendra, Steve, Dave, Joyce and Richard
Ski picnic - brrrr!
Cooking sausage bell pepper penne in our cabin
beautiful photos!! did all your bags and clothes get drenched in the train compartment??
ReplyDeleteMy bag was covered in snow but luckily everything (including my Argentina guide book right on top!) was dry inside. My mom was not so lucky! She had to unpack her Rick Steves bag and hang everything up to dry when we arrived at our cabin. :(
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