Riding the historic Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Colorado 🚂 (Cascade Canyon Express)

I cannot stop freaking out. This is gorgeous. Oh my gosh. Just a perfect topping to the day, end of the day. I'm just so happy right now. Hello from Durango, Colorado. In our last video, we explored Mesa Verde National Park, which had its amazing moments and its less than fun moments. And then our day ended with our bumper being smashed in. We've now moved east to the town of Durango, which we've been to before, but we are very excited to be back and explore more. Durango is located in Southwest Colorado at the base of the San Juan Mountains, and it has such an awesome mix of history and outdoor adventures with the Animas River running right through town, historic buildings, and tons of epic hikes nearby. But a huge part of Durango and its history is the railroad. The railroad. Durango was founded by the Denver and Rio Grande Railway in 1880. The railroad arrived in Durango on August 5th, 1881, and construction on the line to Silverton began that fall. By July of 1882, the tracks to Silverton were completed, and the train began hauling both passengers and freight. From the very beginning, the railroad was promoted as a scenic route for passenger service, although the line was constructed primarily to haul mine ores, both gold and silver, from the San Juan Mountains, with an estimated over 300 million in precious metals being transported over this route. What makes this railroad different from some others is that it is a narrow gauge railroad, which means that the rails are 36 inches apart, while standard gauge rails are 56 and a half inches apart. General Palmer, who founded the railroad, implemented narrow gauge and narrow passenger cars because it was less expensive to install, easier to bring through the rough mountain terrain, and can make sharper curves around mountains. The locomotives used to pull today's trains are 1923 to 1925 vintage. They are almost 100 years old, and they have been recently converted to use fuel oil for the steam versus coal, which is more environmentally friendly and holds less fire risk than a traditional coal-burning engine. Today, the train provides service year-round and currently offers two different routes to choose from, a nine-hour round-trip ride from Durango to Silverton on either diesel or steam, or what we're going to be doing, which is the Cascade Canyon Express, which is five hours and takes us from Durango to Cascade Canyon and back. So there's two different cars you can ride in. You can ride in an open-air gondola or a closed-in coach. We chose the open-air gondola because it just sounded like so much more fun. All passengers ticketed for this train must be on board and seated at this time. We're about 10 miles in from Mosa, and now we're starting to climb up into the hills. It is so amazing so far. I can't stop smiling. It's just beautiful and peaceful, even with all the shaking and the noises. It's just so much fun. This is amazing. So beautiful. I cannot stop freaking out. This is gorgeous. Oh, my gosh. Wow. All right. We have made it to our stop of Cascade Canyon. Ridiculously gorgeous out here. Oh, my goodness. This whole train ride, I can't tell you how many times we've said, this is so cool. Oh, my gosh. It's just been incredibly beautiful. And what was so cool when we got to Cascade Canyon is we got to experience our first why, which is basically when the train turns itself around so we can go back the way we came later. But this ride has been just so much fun. You start out in Durango, kind of just more on the side of the road, work your way up in the mountains. You go at a nice, steady pace so that you can take in all the scenery. You're by the river, going along the river most of the time. It's just been gorgeous. Mountains, cliffs, like gorgeous. It's just gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah. So much fun. Absolutely loving it. And we have about a 30 to 45 minute layover here. So there's kind of some trails you can walk around by the river. We're just going to go check it out and eat. And they told us we can fly our drone. So we're very excited about that. Shout out to the train crew member who told us to come to this bridge. You go to the left along the river. Look how cool this thing is. All right. Our short little break is over. We just heard the four horns, which means you got to get back to the train or else they'll leave you. We are on our way back to Durango. And since you go on the same line there, the same line back, you don't have to switch sides. So every seat is a good seat. So we didn't mention, but there is a bathroom on the train and there's a concession car. So if you want to buy some snacks while you're on here, they have like hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches and other drinks. I think they have alcohol too. We just made it back to Durango and we had so much fun on the train. For reference, it's $86 a person. That was for the five hour ride. We did cost a little bit more to do the whole nine hour ride, but we thought it was totally worth it. It was just so relaxing and peaceful. Like I think we said earlier, like you're kind of swaying and like it's jolting, but it was just so nice to just sit there and just... It kind of rocks you as you go. You could almost fall asleep, but you'd miss all the views. Yeah, but the views were just incredible and just getting to experience this part of Durango's history was just so much fun. Amazing. There's a couple of other fun train things you can do here. One, they have a museum that's just over here. You have to walk across the tracks, which is pretty cool and it's free. And there is tons and tons of stuff in there. It's not just about trains either. It's about the community and the surrounding area. There's like boats and cars and all kinds of stuff in there. And hopefully you'll get to meet Dennis, the museum attendant. He is so nice. He showed us around a little bit yesterday, actually let us go in one of the cabooses in there, which was really fun. Dennis is the best. Yeah. And then one more thing they do is you can take a train, a rail yard tour, which has a little bit of a fee. We're not sure the fee, but I think it's pretty cheap. And also if you do ride the train, you get a discount on that. So the train station's right in the heart of downtown Durango off of Main Ave. And this area is super cool. There are tons of historic buildings. There are restaurants, shops, breweries, and we learned about a delicious handmade ice cream shop called Cream Bean Berry. So we're obviously going to go try it out. The hardest part of our job is vlogging ice cream. My hands are full. I can't turn the camera on. It's melting. It's going to start melting. It just gets frantic. But that means you just have to eat it really quickly. I got the salted caramel and then the vegan peanut butter fudge on what I think is the coolest part, a blue corn waffle cone. Looks really cool. Which is gluten free. It's really thin looking. Yeah. It's interesting. Looks awesome. I got the mixed berry crisp and then on the bottom, the vegan peanut butter and fudge. Oh, they look so good. We're ready to eat it. And then I realized after the fact, it's kind of like a PB&J with the berries and the peanut butter. Oh, oh wow. That is some dang good salted caramel. Oh, it's so creamy. Not too salty. Oh my God. So the mixed berry crisp, what I'm trying right now, great berry flavor in there. It's got a little bit of granola in there, I guess, to give it that crisp. Super creamy, fruity. There are such huge chunks in this mixed berry ice cream. This is honestly some of the best ice cream we've had in a really long time. It's just so creamy and good. We're getting down to the chocolate peanut butter one and that one is ridiculous too. It's so peanut buttery and then there's this giant swirl of chocolate in it. It tastes like a Reese's honestly. Oh God. But way better, ice cream Reese's. We're having a rough time describing this because we're just so happy right now. It's so good. Yeah, just a perfect topping to the day, end of the day. Just when we thought this couldn't get any better, there are peanuts in the peanut butter fudge and you could, you would never know this is vegan. This, I'm just so, I'm like speechless. This is really, really good. And this cone, I'm so happy to get to eat a cone. I'm just so happy right now. We need to go buy a pint. We really should go buy a pint. Can we buy a pint? I'm not gonna hurt you. Can we buy a pint for later? I'm not gonna hurt you. So you know the ice cream is extra good when you have to run back in and buy another pint. So that's what we did. No regrets there. We actually had to rush back to our Airbnb to put it in the freezer so it doesn't melt and for Kona kisses. We got an Airbnb so that we could ride the train and we had somewhere to keep Kona for the time. She's very happy that we're back. Oh yeah. We've actually been here in Durango for about two weeks now. We've just been working, camping outside of town and going on lots of runs and walks with Kona all along the river. It's been a ton of fun. We absolutely love it here in Durango. We love the surrounding area and we cannot wait to explore more of southwest Colorado. Right Kona? You excited? She said next time they won't need me hopefully. Berry is fresh to death. That is so good. I don't even know how to describe this ice cream. It's just creamy. Like your teeth. Is it better? Yep, it's good. The locomotives used to pull today's trains are 1923 to 1925 Vincent. Thanks, that's what I needed.