Day 17 - Helper UT

5:00am and I gradually become aware of an almight noise outside. Not a soothing noise like a train might be either. No, it's a car engine being revved like there is no tomorrow. It goes on and on and on. I prise myself out of bed and to the window and see it's the vehicle next to mine. Eventually, after what feels like an eternity it drops to an idle, revs once more and drives off. Talk about respect for your fellow lodgers!

So I tried drifting back to sleep but lay there half dreaming about law enforcement officials chasing me around town. Eventually I did get to sleep, and had a good sleep in.

When I finally emerged it was a most magnificent day outside. Gloriously sunny! Balance Rock stood basking in the sun, watching over Helper.

And to think yesterday it'd been snowing! Now there was almost no sign of the snow and it was almost shorts and tee shirt weather.

I didn't have any plan for the day and there hadn't been much rail traffic either, so thought I would have a quiet day. I saw that there was a geocache up the road a bit overlooking Castle Gate so decided I would walk up there and see what the view was like. So I bundled up and drove the couple of minutes there and was soon hiking up the track.

As I soon discovered, hiking at 7000 ft is quiet exhausting! That is like starting my climb from the top of the Southern Alps. And I was trudging through snow which saps energy.

I soon got to the top of the old road and found the collapsed water tank that had been there. There were a lot of old mining buildings down in the side valley so I suspect this dated from then too. It was quite interesting, but very busted. As I looked around I noticed a train coming down the grade so jumped into action, ran round the hillside a little and found a photo spot.

Up the hill I could see a pinnacle so decided that would be a sensible thing to hike towards.

So up I climbed, pausing plenty often enough. In total I climbed about 500 ft, which I guess isn't too bad.

I found a nice little hollow in the rock which wasn't snowy and settled down, wrapped up warm and read my book. After a while I heard a grumbling below and was lucky enough to catch a UP manifest grinding its way upgrade. From where I was it looked like a little N gauge train, especially with all the colourful wagons of different shapes and sizes.

And then away around Castle Gate it snaked. You can almost see how it got its name here, you can certainly see how it looks like a row of turrets along the top. From certain angles at certain times of the day, a curve of rock on the south face is illuminated in such a way that it looks just like a large castle gate, complete with arched top.

There were originally two rock formations, and, to quote a local website: "Some idiot from the Utah Department of Transportation blew one side of the Castle off so we can now drive around the curve five miles faster". Such a shame, and when you consider the lengths that Colorado went to when building I70 through Glenwood Canyon (including marking individual trees as not to be disturbed).

The view from my little rock was quite impressive.

About half an hour later the Utah Railway train returned headed back up the canyon. The three MK5000s were working pretty hard.

I climbed down and found another rock to sit on and read while I basked in the sun. After a while of no more trains the wind picked up and it started getting cold so I decided to head on down.

I stopped at the water tank but had no luck finding the geocache; to be fair I didn't have either the hint of the coordinates, just a general idea of where it might be.

I headed on down and was glad to get back to the car and my stash of food!

Stopped in at Helper Yard and spied a few locos. They've put in a nice new Amtrak platform now which gives me a nice officially-ok place to stand and observe things. And observe I did… a nice shiny newly overhauled pair of snoot nosed (snoot = long) SD40-2s sandwhiching a tired looking SD70.

And in the other direction, a 6 pack of AC4400s.

And the main street of Helper with Balance Rock about 25% of the way in from the left.

Back at the motel I had just started taking off my shoes when I heard a train coming through.

It stopped at the depot to change crews, which meant it obscured the crossing here for about 40 minutes! Eventually it headed off and I zoomed down the road to try and get some shots of it.

I zoomed down the road to find another spot, missed a perfect crossing, but managed a U turn and then a mad dash across 4 lanes of US 6 traffic.

As I was taking these the sheriff from down the road (not the Helper sheriff) pulled up and asked if everything was ok, cos he'd seen me run across the road. He was quite happy to see I was taking photos of the train, and then just as he was about to pull off someone tooted at him, and he was off, no doubt to question them. Surely tooting at the sheriff isn't that smart?! Anyway he seemed like a nice sheriff and was no bother to me.

Then it was off to dinner at my usual eatery. Afterwards I crossed the road to check out the Cal Zephyr, only running 7 minutes late today. That's almost early by Amtrak standards! (In Japan that would be a fired train driver, profuse apologies, and apparently even a signed letter from JR validating that the train was in fact late, as no employer would ordinarily believe that excuse).

It was a very quick stop tonight with just a single family to board and then off again. I was surprised at how big the carriages seemed while I stood next to them.

Someone had written "Wash me" in the grime on the lead engine.

And then they were off, again with a magnificent horn echo around the hills. I was sad to see when I returned the Mr Noisy Car was parked outside again; I really hope the 5am start is not a regular thing.