Ski and use the train

[CaptPete 43]

My wife and I have done this trip, or parts of it, multiple times:

• Denver to Winter Park by California Zephyr or Winter Park Express . Ski a few days at Winter Park.
• Winter Park to Salt Lake City by the California Zephyr . Coach is adequate. The train crosses the Rockies and Wasatch Mountains. Stay downtown. Lots of hotels and some pretty good restaurants. Many of the ski resorts are accessible by TRAX plus a shuttle bus.
• SLC to Reno by California Zephyr, preferably in a sleeper. Rent a car and ski Palisades Tahoe (formerly Squaw Valley) and Alpine Meadows (these 2 resorts are now connected by lift) and/or Mammoth Mountain.
• Return to Reno.

Great skiing, great rail. Further almost all of these resorts use the IKON pass. If you are not familiar with this multi-resort pass, try Googling it.

 

[oregon pioneer]

Hubby and I stopped overnight a long time ago at the Isaac Walton Inn, in Essex Montana. The Empire Builder schedule is perfect to stop, spend a full day x-c skiing (with their rentals, on the trail system across the tracks), and a night in one of their cozy trackside rooms. Eastbound, you arrive in the morning (8:50am), and westbound in the evening (7:41pm). After your 24 hour sojourn and some serious leg-stretching, you can get back on the train and continue your journey. The Isaac Walton is a true railroad hotel, knows when your tain arrives and when it will leave, and shuttles you to/from the platform in their van.

 

[MARC Rider]

Since at least 2004, I've been using the train for winter sports trips in upstate New York and northern New England.

My first trip was using Empire Service to Syracuse, then a (very expensive) cab ride to Pulaski, to join a group X-C skiing in the Tug Hill Plateau. One of the trip participants gave me a lift back to Syracuse at the end of the weekend.

Then a whole bunch of trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Sometimes I'd ride the Vermonter to White River Junction, and rent a car there, but that involved and overnight stay at the Coolidge Hotel as the Vermonter got into town after the car rental places closed for the day. Most of the trips, I'd take either the Northeast Regional or Acela to Boston and pick up my car there. Sometimes, I'd stop at the Manchester Airport and pick up other members of the group who flew up. On the way south, I'd sometime take NER 67 overnight right into Washington, where I'd go straight to work.

The last few years, our trips have been to Maine. Same thing. Acela up to Boston, pick up other members of the group at Portland, and off to the snowy mountains. On a trip a few years ago, it was close to 70 and sunny along the coast (this was the end of February), but when we got up into the mountains it was well below freezing and there was at least a foot and a half of snow on the ground.

By the way, skis fit very well into the overhead racks of an Amfleet 1 car.