The Algoma Snow Train February 2005

We were given a Christmas present of 2 nights in a hotel and a trip on the Algoma Snow Train. We actually found a weekend we weren't otherwise booked a week after Marnie's birthday, so off we went.

Because they want to do all the trip during the day, it's necessary to leave really early (not bad, 8AM). We were rather late getting our reservations in (only 5 remaining seats when we bought them), so we were on coach 2. As you can see, it's a long way from our coach to the dining car at the back of the train.

On the right is the parking lot, and it was full (including 4 tour busses).

I always think of Michigan as flat, and the Sault being just across the river, it ought to be as well. As you can see from this picture (just north of the city of Sault St. Marie), there's some pretty big hills in front of us.

Very quickly, we were "away from civilization". The first part of the trip parallels Provincial Highway 17, and there are some homes along the way. This would be a pretty place to have a home, but the next home is miles away (actually, I suspect it's kilometers away, but ...) and you really need to travel to get any social activity.

Just north of Sault Ste. Marie is Searchmont ski resort. It looks like a very nice place to ski (best place in the midwest I'd guess), but as you can see, Colorado it's not.

Here we are on the train.

The travel is up the eastern shore of Lake Superior. Originally the idea was to log this area to get wood for the steel mill, then convert the cleared land into farm land (thus making business for the railroad). After some of the land was cleared, they tried to farm it and found out the best thing it grew as rocks. So that didn't happen. Near the top of the ridge is a hydraulic dam that still is making power. Thus they needed to clear the land so the power lines weren't shorted by trees. That meant that we got a good view of the ridge (otherwise, you mostly saw trees).

The train tracks pretty much cross over the top of the dam. Here's a picture looking back at the rest of the train as our car now turns north again. (Apologies for the reflections in the window. I tried to get them to stop the train so I could get out and get a good picture and they wouldn't even listen to me).

This picture is from the top of the dam to the left of the train. As you can see, they have a lot of height to work with (and with a hydraulic dam, the only thing more important is how much water flows through here).

In many places, it's the small things that provide the beauty. Here you can see a little stream working it's way down the mountain. From here on down to the canyon floor, the side we were on was mostly rock cuts. I tried to get pictures, but got nothing, but they were spectacular to look at as well.

On the other side of the train, you could sometimes get a good look at Lake Superior. We're still several hundred feet above it, so you wouldn't want to walk there unless you were really in good shape.

We finally got to the canyon floor (just about noon, so 4 hours to travel 145 miles). The highlight of the canyon is the waterfalls along the sides, but as you can see, there's no water falling, it's all frozen in place. Most of the water comes from snow melt, and at this time of year, there's not much snow melting (lots of snow, it was 4' deep on the canyon floor). So I guess you'd say God was having fun making water sculptures.

This picture of Bridal Vail Falls (same as above, just a bit further away) gives you a good view of the falls and the canyon park. During the summer, they park the train here for 2 hours and you can get out and walk (it's about 40 minutes round trip from one end of the canyon to the other). However, with 4' of snow on the ground, we were just as happy to sit here while the engine moved to the other end of the train and they sold us our box lunches (pretty good lunch for a reasonable price as well). With only a 20 minute break, we were back on our way.

The coaches they use were all built in the 50s, 2 seats per large window. Since you reverse in the middle, whoever had the larger portion of the window on the way up gets the smaller portion on the way back. It's about as fair as you can make it.