After my long drive from Lake City via Wolf Creek Pass, I spent my first full day in Silverton just relaxing around town. Silverton has 2 main streets—one is paved and the other is dirt to provide a more realistic 1800’s mining town feel.
The town has some great buildings that look really authentic (rather than newer construction that just “appears” to look old)---
Well I suppose “almost” everything is authentic in Silverton. This pic would have looked right out of the 1800’s if not for the satellite dish right behind the stagecoach driver’s head!
Earlier in the morning, I had driven up the side of one of the tall mountains overlooking the town to take some pictures of the famous narrow-gauge steam railroad train that carries tourists from Durango to Silverton each day.
I got the Tracker parked at the top of the hill about 15 minutes before the first train was to arrive:
I waited and waited, but never saw the train. Hmm, that’s strange—aren’t trains always on-time? I checked the train’s website again to confirm the times and thought maybe they didn’t do as many daily runs as they advertised, so I continued to wait on the hill for the next scheduled train…..but still nothing! Finally, after 2 hours of waiting, I left thinking the trains just must not run on Thursdays.
A few days later when I was reading thru the local paper, I discovered that a large mudslide had occurred the day before I arrived and that all trains were blocked from reaching Silverton for a few days until they could clean it up. Ah, so that explains it!
My train photos would need to wait a few more days except for this 1 train “stuck” in Silverton that served as a nice backdrop to the nightly gunfight!
As I returned to the campground, I took a little drive down the county road that leads to many of the 4WD trails just east of town. The mountains are just spectacular here!
Just can't beat those blue skies you have to go with the scenery! :)
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