A Swiss approach

Too bad the Cumbres highway does't lend itself to being used as a winter sled run. In Switzerland during the winter the highway over Albula pass is closed and turned into a long sled run, and the parallel RhB ng. hauls the sleds and riders up the hill. Or at least that was true some years ago. In my limited experience sledding down a looooong hill like that is about as much fun as you can have without taking your clothes off. And on weekends the railroad appeared to do a land office business.

But more realistically, I sometimes wonder if there is any way to turn Osier into some kind of rail accessed ski, ski board, and/or snowmobile winter recreation destination. The isolation would be wonderful, but keeping the railroad open would probably be more costly than it is worth.

But finding someway to generate (positive) cash flow during the winter would certainly be a step in the right direction of making the railroad self supporting (and creating some needed local business). When I was spending a lot of time during the winter in Chama the local businesses would talk about "cash fumes" by the time Spring rolled around. The need for some, almost any winter business was very apparent.

JBWX



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2013 12:22AM by John West.