Excuse the length of this trip report but I’m combining two separate aspects of the trip into one report. I’ll use headings so you can jump around if you’d rather not read everything.
How and why I booked the trip
I took the California Zephry from San Francisco (technically Emeryville) to Denver about 7 years ago. It takes about 36 hours so it required an overnight. I just got a coach seat and sleeping in that wasn’t incredibly fun, at least for me. Plenty of other people don’t seem to mind. While on that trip, the train stopped in Glenwood Springs, Colorado home to some world famous hot springs. I’ve been to dozens of hot springs all over the U.S. but it was always in the back of my mind to check out Glenwood Springs at some point. While you can easily drive to there from Denver and other places, I knew that I wanted to take the train since that was a ton of fun in itself. It was just a coincidence that this trip almost exactly coincided with my previous Amtrak trip.
You could take the train from the west but it’s easier for me to fly into Denver so I flew in on Monday night and got a hotel about a mile away from Denver Union Station. To get to the hotel, I took the A train from the airport which is $10. It’ll take you to Union Station and then from there, you can take a free bus called the Mall Ride which dropped me off right around the corner from the hotel. The train leaves at about 8am so it’s not possible to fly in on the same day. I stayed at the Grand Hyatt for points reasons and it was a nice hotel but rather unnecessary for such a short stay.
Denver to Glenwood Springs is about 6 hours but with delays, that could be longer. I booked a coach seat and since the train was almost sold out, it could be around $100 instead of the $50 it was just a few days prior. I was kind of annoyed by that. On top of that, I somehow had a lower level seat and when I tried to change it, I was told it was completely sold out. Normally this wouldn’t matter as I hang out in the observation car anyway but I was concerned it would have been full and that I’d be stuck in my coach seat. The last thing I wanted was to be on the lower level not being able to see anything. I then noticed that I got an email to bid for an upgrade to a roomette. This is a fancy word for a room that is the size of a closet but at least it’s private and it comes with free meals. The price to upgrade was only an additional $100 and it would be an instant upgrade. Since the roomette normally sells for about $200 and right now it was almost $600, I thought it was a good deal. Since I was getting on at breakfast time and getting off after lunch time, I also knew that I was getting $50 worth of free meals so that helped as well. I also wanted to check out the roomette for purposes of this report.
Denver to Glenwood Springs
I got to the station on Tuesday a little too early but I was able to hang out in the station until it was time to board. A ton of people were getting on the train and they had us all line up. I got on the train and when right to my room which of course, was on the bottom! So much for avoiding that. It was nice though as it was very quiet and private. Despite being on the bottom of the car, I still had a good view out of the big window. I dropped off my stuff and went straight to breakfast.
There’s only so much room in the dining car so you’ll be seated with other people if you’re not a group of four. I was by myself at first but then this older couple were seated with me a few minutes later. They were really nice and we had a great conversation about a wide variety of topics including travel of course. I had the omelet for breakfast which was really good but not worth $25 (cash price for coach customers). I wonder if the price is set like that to prevent people from overloading the dining car? On top of that you have to tip the dining car attendant so it’ll be more like $30. We hung out until they were about to kick us out.
I went back to my room to check it out and enjoy the views. I figured I’d be there for a while but then the conductor announced that since the train is so full, they’ll have shifts so that everyone can enjoy the observation car. I thought that was really nice of them. Until 11am it was open seating and they would let us know when there was empty seats (which they did a few times). He then passed out tickets for 11am to 12:30 or 12:30 to 2. He went to the sleeper car first so I got a ticket. I then went up to the observation car to see if there were any open seats and there were a handful. With my 11am ticket, I pretty much hung out there and watched the views until 12:30.
This to me is one of the best kept secrets in travel. Sure there’s a ton of YouTube videos on Amtrak trains but I don’t think any of them really hit home how amazing this is, especially in the winter. This area received a lot of snow this year (which wasn’t the case 7 years ago) so everything looked like a winter wonderland. You go through canyons and other areas that are just completely inaccessible to just about everyone else. While there are parts of the journey that will parallel the road, for most of the trip you’re in sparsely populated areas to complete wilderness without any roads in sight. In fact, some of these canyons are so deep, I don’t think there’s any way to even hike to them; at least it seems that way and we certainly didn’t see anyone.
Amtrak is known for being slow but going through all these areas require navigating a ton of twists and turns as the train follows the Colorado River and then the Fraser River. As a result, the train is very slow. Normally this would be annoying but this slow speed actually helps make the ride so much better. Everything seems more like a theme park ride. You can clearly view the scenery and enjoy it as it’s not just a blur. When you see wildlife, you can enjoy them for several seconds instead of a blink and you miss it situation.
On the way there and back, I saw probably 1000 elk, dozens of mule deer, dozens of wild turkeys, several eagles and two beavers. The conductor saw two moose but I’m not sure if anyone else did. A passenger saw dall sheep but I missed that. While I’ve seen plenty of elk in my travels, it was really cool to see them in the snow. Some of them were up to their stomachs in snow while others seemingly played around in it running up and down the hills. They get pretty close to the train so again, it’s almost like a theme park ride where you get so close to everything.
Like breakfast, lunch is open seating and it’s also $25 for coach passengers. For that price, you get a drink, an entree and a desert. I got the cheese burger and it was about as good as you would expect on a train. So good, but not amazing and certainly not worth $25. There’s a cafe on the downstairs of the observation car that sells drinks, snacks, candy and food like burgers and such. You can put together this same meal for under $15. I’m sure the burger will be a little different but I don’t think the one in the dining room is worth another $10 plus $5 tip. The couple I saw with this time weren’t too chatty but they were nice. We spoke a little bit but I mostly watched the amazing scenery. After that it was time to go back to the observation car where I pretty much stayed until we got to Glenwood Springs.
Altogether, I probably only spent an hour at most in my roomette. I didn’t test out the bed since that would involve making the sleeping car attendant do a bunch of work just to test something out but I could imagine it’s not incredibly comfortable. I guess it depends on your preference. I’m 6’2 so I’m not sure how much space there would be if Heidi was with me but by myself, it was fine. Very quiet and private but for a short trip like this, rather unnecessary. There’s also no bathroom so if you have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you gotta go down the hall. Same with the shower.
Arriving at Glenwood Springs
Once we go into Glenwood Springs I walked over to the hotel. It was only about 15 minutes. Glenwood Springs is pretty small so you don’t need a car. I didn’t even bother checking on Uber or Lyft so I can’t tell you about that. I stayed at the Best Western Antlers which didn’t get amazing reviews but really nothing did in this town. It’s a very small touristy town so it seems like all the hotels decided to not make anything that nice, lol. However, I was actually surprised with how nice this place was. Of course, you have to set expectations. This is a motel, not a resort but that being said there was a good breakfast (relative to motels) and the room was updated. Perhaps there’s rooms that are not updated but mine was nice (relative again). Pillows and bedding were nice, AC and heat worked great, TV was nice with a ton of channels, bathroom was basic but fine and nothing was dirty. There was also a nice hot tub that was indoors but it was a big enough room that it didn’t seem humid. In the same building was a guest laundry. The employees were very nice as well. I don’t understand why it doesn’t get better reviews. It has to be one of the better places to stay in that town. It was also walking distance to both hot springs.
As soon as I checked in, I headed right over to the Glenwood Hot Springs. This place has been around forever and they are going to open a big expansion later on this month. For right now, you pay $32 for all day access to two pools – one is massive and that is heated to about 94 degrees, the other is smaller but is heated to 104 degrees. It looks like they’ll have 7 more smaller pools that will all have different features. The smaller pool has these chairs that you can lay in while water massages you. Think of a hot tub that you lay on. Very relaxing. There’s also high pressure water jets to massage your neck and back further down from the chairs. Again, very relaxing.
My only complaint about this place is that there’s no real indoor space to hang out in other than the locker rooms and that’s not exactly a place to hang out in. It would be nice to cool off and reset in a comfortable temperature for a while and then go back in. Right now, you’re either in one of the pools or you’re freezing. It was about 34 degrees so being wet in that temperature in just a bathing suit is not fun at all. I was there for about 3 hours and then called it a day.
Iron Mountain Hot Springs
The next day I went to Iron Mountain Hot Springs. About 15 minute walk away. I got there before 10 and there wasn’t a lot of people there. There’s different prices depending on what you want to do but I went with the $100 all day pass which includes all 32 pools. There’s two sections, the original section and brand new World Pool section. That new section has different pools that are inspired by hot springs from around the world. Iceland, Japan, France, Italy, etc. For example, one pool is inspired by the Dead Sea and while not as buyount as the dead sea, it’s still really salty so it’s easy to float. The original section is mostly different temperatures. Cheaper passes allow you to just access the original section or both for 3 hours. You get a wristband and then they announce when it’s time for you to go.
I was there for about 3 hours and then it was time for lunch so I went to the Village Inn which was near my hotel. This is a diner chain but there’s not a ton of options in this town especially on this side of the tracks. Thankfully it was really good. I then got some stuff done in my room and went back to the springs around 2. I was there again for about 3 and half hours this time and then decided to go get dinner. I thought about going back for a 3rd round but its a mile round trip and I was pretty wiped out. I also don’t know if it’s good to soak in hot springs for more than 7 hours in one day so I opted to check out the hot tub in the hotel for a bit. It was really nice and there was no one in it.
Glenwood Springs to Denver
The next day, I walked to the train station and got on the train which was late by about an hour. This is common with Amtrak for any number of reasons. I covered most of what I needed to discuss about this train journey previously but I’ll highlight a few differences. The train was not sold out so there were no issues with space in the observation car. On the previous train, the conductor gave us a lot of information about the area, the animals, the geology, etc. There were also a lot of jokes. The conductor on this train was pretty quiet so you may have different experiences depending on the personality of the conductor. There were also more delays on this trip for various reasons so we got into Denver almost two hours late.
The biggest difference with this trip is that I had a coach seat. The seats on coach are nice and are probably better than most domestic first class airline seats. They recline pretty far back and there’s a part for your legs so you can lay back like you would in a recliner. However, the coach car itself is rather dark and to be honest, a little depressing. Even during the day there are people passed out and it just kind of seems like a greyhound situation despite the nice seats. While the windows are nice, there are two seats so if you don’t get a window seat, you’ll have to be looking over your neighbor which can be awkward. I didn’t even bother to check out the coach car on my previous train but this one had a bit of a funk to it. Keep in mind that some of these people may have been on the train for days and there is no shower available. I don’t know what it was but it was not a pleasant place to hang out.
The good news is that you do not have to sit in your seat. Sometimes you have assigned seats but when the train is not that full, they’ll let you pick your own. So I threw my coat on a seat near a window and then went to the lounge car. As there was plenty of room, they never had to limit how much you can sit there so I was there the entire time. The lounge car is the complete opposite of coach. While the seats aren’t as comfortable as the coach car, all the windows provide for amazing views. I think the views were even nice than the previous train. Sounds strange since it was the same exact scenery but it just looks better for some reason. We also saw even more wildlife most of which I’ve already discussed.
Once we got near Denver, the sun went down and when it gets dark, it really gets dark. There’s really nothing at all to see so at that point, you should have a book to read or something to do on your phone/computer. I did some work on my computer until we pulled into Denver. Just like before, I took the MallRide bus to the hotel and that was the end of my journey. It was really incredible and winter is really a great time to do this trip. However, the views are so amazing that I don’t think there is a bad time to go.
Amtrak tips
The most important thing to keep in mind if you are looking to book a trip on Amtrak is that there is a large part of the country that is far from exciting. Looking at farmland go by for hours on end might not be your idea of a good time. Another thing to note is that these observation cars are not on every train. The Amtrak routes with observation cars include:
- California Zephyr.
- City of New Orleans.
- Coast Starlight.
- Empire Builder.
- Southwest Chief.
- Sunset Limited.
- Texas Eagle.
Another thing to note is that unlike flights which may have several options for each day, Amtrak often only has one train per day. As I mentioned before, there are often delays so you don’t want to schedule things too close together. I met a couple that scheduled another train two hours after this one was supposed to reach Chicago. With all the delays, it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. Although the train can make up time, you can’t expect the schedule to be reliable.
The best Amtrak routes in my opinion are in the Western US with the California Zephyr between Emeryville and Denver being the best route. If you didn’t want to worry about sleeping on the train, you could catch it in Denver and take it to Salt Lake City. One other thing to note is that if you go in the winter, you’ll have less daylight and once the sun goes down, you won’t be seeing much of anything.
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