An English country girl in California: Across America on the California Zephyr

The California Zephyr trundles across America at much the same gentle pace as the wind whose name it bears. Yet I would have it no other way, for the landscapes deserve to be absorbed to the full. I left San Francisco in the early morning, travelling to Denver, Colorado, via the Amtrak sleeper train (www.amtrak.com) that crosses California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Iowa and Illinois on its way to Chicago. It is a breathtaking journey, and one that cannot be accomplished without thinking of the astonishing feat of engineering and perseverance it took to build a railway across the empty wastes in the middle of the 19^th century.

There are many more photographs at the end of this post!

The California Zephyr waiting at Grand Junction, Colorado

Soon after the Zephyr left Emeryville on the shores of the East Bay, the fog receded to leave clear blue skies. The first part of the journey is prosaic enough, through the urban sprawl that joins Oakland and Richmond, but soon becomes memorable, leaving farmland behind to climb into the Sierra Nevadas. Forest clad and gentle at first, the track soon winds along precipitous cliffs, great ravines opening up below the train’s wheels to scare the feeble and thrill the adventurous. (I leave it to you to decide my reaction!)

Through the Sierra Nevadas

Nearing the California/Nevada border, the hills receded to reveal a fast-flowing, crystal-clear river, tumbling down through green-shaded banks, with the odd fishermen trying a cast and neat houses set on the far bank, with horses desultorily swishing their tails in the sun. On reaching Reno, the train was consigned to a trench, shielding the townspeople from its rattle and allowing passage from one side of the city to another. All fair enough, but it was a shame not to be able to see anything. We slid out of the city centre and passed industrial sidings and warehouses before heading to the hills and finally into the Nevada desert.

Leaving Reno behind and heading to the bare Nevada hills

It was a land of mere earth, rock and (not much) water, like Narnia before Aslan had called up the grass and the trees. The desert stretched to the horizon, the metallic blue of the sky reflecting back the heat of the sun to the parched ground. In England, the landscapes of East Anglia seem to go on forever, but they are as nothing to the vastness of the American west. The early settlers must have had great reserves of stamina and faith to have kept on travelling, ever hopeful that some more promising land lay beyond. The dusty prairie is familiar from Western films, and I kept expecting to see the silhouette of cowboys fighting on the roof of the train and a cloud of dust from their accomplices whipping their horses to match our speed, but, sadly, the only things moving in the vastness were lorries thrashing their way along Highway 80. A dust storm blotted out the horizon, telegraph poles whipped past, casting ominous shadows in the dust, and occasional homesteads, straggly trees offering some semblance of shade, hunkered down against the eternal wind. As dusk began to fall, Nature’s power was revealed in the shape of huge, red, striated cliffs, rocks pushed up over centuries. It is an elemental landscape, bare of even of the most basic needs of Man.

The Nevada desert

I slept extremely well, rocked to sleep by the soothing motion of the train, and woke to the strange shapes of the rock formations in the Utah desert - we had passed through Salt Lake City overnight. Rocks towered above sandy dry waterways, in every shade of ochre and gold and red, steep striated slopes rising beyond. Before long, we crossed into Colorado, and after threading our way through the Colorado River gorge- a mere shadow of the Grand Canyon it will reach later, but nonetheless impressive - began the climb into the Rockies. The backbone of North America stretches from Canada to New Mexico, and draws thousands of skiiers, hikers, riders and white-water rafters every year. The railway passes through thick forests and river valleys, alternating between wide grassy banks and dramatic ravines where the track clings impossibly to the rocky sides, occasionally passing through tunnels when the slope becomes too steep. Sometimes, the landscape would open up to reveal vast meadows stretching away to snowy mountains, beckoning the traveler to set off into the unknown. The next minute, incongruous above green grassy hillside, ski lifts would hang motionless, a reminder of the hugely popular ski season to come later in the year. The train crawled along, chugging gradually downhill until, suddenly, we emerged from a valley to see the great plain of Colorado stretching to the horizon, broken only by the Denver skyscrapers, glittering like an oasis in the flat expanse.

A rainbow breaking free of a storm over flat Colorado

The last few miles were excruciatingly slow, apparently because the day had been so hot on the plain compared with the chilly mountain air that the rail tracks had expanded and the train had to go extremely carefully to avoid derailing. Thus, we were about an hour late, but the soft evening light on the ranchland in the foothills made for a gorgeous view to finish. I cannot recommend the California Zephyr more highly, as although the basic sleeper cabins would be a squash for two, they are extremely comfortable for one, and the staff are all notably friendly. Considering that we were dining on a train in a desert, the food is good, with clam chowder for lunch being my favourite. Travelling alone, I was always assigned a seat at a table with others to fill up the car, and met some interesting people, including a young father travelling with his French wife and young son who turned out to have been to St Andrews University the year before I arrived, and a pair of delightful teachers from Iowa who shared my love of landscapes, cars and travel. There was only one slightly awkward moment when a vehement lady from deepest Oregon told me she had a calendar to mark the days until President Obama could be ‘got rid of’. We swiftly changed topics!

Approaching Denver

Every mile is a feast for the eyes, from desert to mountain, and it is definitely the most relaxing way to travel. It is only dangerous for the waistline – as life on a sleeper train consists exclusively of eating, sleeping and sitting still. Fortunately, life on a working ranch in Wyoming is getting rid of most of the extra pounds. The next instalment will be from Bitterroot Ranch, as soon as I can keep awake long enough to put metaphorical pen to paper.