Wow!!! Those rapids r'great!
I think that's what drew us to the excursion to begin with. It's an old mining rail that's still
kept up very well, and follows the river up the mountain. We opted for the bus ride back down
which gives a whole new view of the area + months ago we had no idea of the weather to expect
when we booked the bus. By rail it's 3.5 hours in the open gondola (which we chose open for pictures and views)
which would've been worse if temp was in the 40's and raining.
The closed in cars like these would be warmer and protected from wind more, but the gondolas provide better viewing
so that was the bottom line.
It's hard to convey the angle of how steep this mountain is, but also, the train cars pitched it appeared to be a foot travel
is many places as the cars rocked left and right. This pitching made it difficult to walk up and down the isles
and standing at the latrine was an experience. Imagine a porta potty rocking to a 12" pitch in the worst places on the tracks.
Then as we came into the town of Silverton.