Railway adventure trips with Rocky Mountaineer

8 January 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Hotels Reading Time:  9 minutes

Rocky Mountaineer with Rockies in the background © The Land/cc-by-sa-3.0

Rocky Mountaineer with Rockies in the background © The Land/cc-by-sa-3.0

Rocky Mountaineer is a Canadian rail-tour company in Western Canada that operates trains on three rail routes through British Columbia and Alberta. Rocky Mountaineer trains operate exclusively during the day to maximize scenic views, therefore, no sleeper service is offered. All trips include overnight stops at which passengers disembark and stay in hotels. As Rocky Mountaineer is primarily a railtour service, not an intercity passenger train, all journeys are end-to-end. Between their origin and destination, trains only stop for overnight layovers, and no passengers may begin or end their journeys at these stations. The one exception to these provisions is the First Passage to the West route, which has an intermediate stop at Lake Louise where westbound passengers may board and eastbound passengers may disembark. No tickets are sold solely for the Banff-Lake Louise portion of the trip. Trains only operate in the tourist season of April to October.   read more…

Cheyenne Mountain

1 February 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, House of the Month, Hotels, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  11 minutes

Cheyenne Mountain viewed from Colorado Springs © Thomson200

Cheyenne Mountain viewed from Colorado Springs © Thomson200

Cheyenne Mountain is a triple-peaked mountain in El Paso County, Colorado, southwest of downtown Colorado Springs. The mountain serves as a host for military, communications, recreational, and residential functions. Homesteading on the mountain began in 1867 and the mountain was the site of resorts and retreats beginning in the 1880s. Spencer Penrose, who built The Broadmoor in 1918, bought many of the properties on the mountain and built the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Cheyenne Mountain Highway, Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, a lodge on one of the mountain peaks, and a retreat at Emerald Valley. The site of the lodge has become a wilderness Cloud Camp and Emerald Valley is now the site of The Broadmoor’s Ranch at Emerald Valley. Land on Cheyenne Mountain that had once been owned by The Broadmoor is now the site of luxury homes. A community, Overlook Colony, that began in 1911 still resides on the mountain.   read more…

Aspen in the Roaring Fork Valley

11 December 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Downtown Aspen © Matthew Trump/cc-by-sa-3.0

Downtown Aspen © Matthew Trump/cc-by-sa-3.0

Aspen is a city in and the county seat of Pitkin County, Colorado, with 6,700 permanent residents. It is situated in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains’ Sawatch Range and Elk Mountains, along the Roaring Fork River at an elevation just below 8,000 feet (2,400 m) above sea level on the Western Slope, 11 miles (18 km) west of the Continental Divide.   read more…

Banff Springs Hotel

23 November 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels Reading Time:  3 minutes

© Kim Payant/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Kim Payant/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Fairmont Banff Springs or simply the Banff Springs Hotel is a former railway hotel constructed in Scottish Baronial style located in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. The original hotel, designed by American architect Bruce Price, was built between spring of 1887 and 1888 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, at the instigation of its President, William Cornelius Van Horne. The hotel was publicly opened on June 1, 1888. Starting in 1911, a wholly new hotel was built in stages to replace the 1888 structure. The new hotel was designed by another American architect, Walter S. Painter. Compared with Price’s Shingle style-influenced wooden structure, Painter’s new hotel was built of concrete and faced with stone.   read more…

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