Ambience
| February 18, 2009 08:18PM |
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With regard to "ambience" Ely is a very different place summer and winter. The attached photo taken a few years ago summarizes why I love Ely in the winter, when the surrounding mountains are snowcapped, and there is indeed something of an Alpine ambience. I drive there via US 50, touted by the few towns along the way as the "lonliest highway in the world", and in the winter it is a fabulously scenic drive that crosses one summit after another with vast panoramas of high desert and snow capped peaks.
Summer is a different story. Ely is high (6,437 feet), so the temps are not all that much different than Chama. But it is dry high desert with few trees. There are some wonderful oasis' in the high mountain valleys, but Ely itself is much less attractive. And of course that is the tourist season, to the extent there is a tourist season.
Tough place to run a tourist railway.
JBWX
Summer is a different story. Ely is high (6,437 feet), so the temps are not all that much different than Chama. But it is dry high desert with few trees. There are some wonderful oasis' in the high mountain valleys, but Ely itself is much less attractive. And of course that is the tourist season, to the extent there is a tourist season.
Tough place to run a tourist railway.
JBWX
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488 stops for water at Los Pinos tank on closing day Oct. 1979. Photo courtesy Don Richter
The NGDF was started by Don Richter and is currently operated in his memory by Nathan Holmes and others. Others who have contributed to the upkeep of this board are (in no particular order): Charles McCandless, Everett Lueck, Ted Wilton, Cole Adams, James Bane, John Moellmer, Jon Bentz, Linn Moedinger, lloyd lehrer, Rod Jensen, John Craft, Steven Forney, Herb Kelsey, Bill Ramaley, Russ Sperry (El Russo Loco), Josh McNeal, John West, Jim Armstrong, Bob Bergstrom, Greg Scholl, Blake Forbes Doug van Veelen and Mark Fuller.