This was a fantastic adventure! I think mild wild is the way to go if you're planning to ride the Durango Silverton train. You get an awesome trip from Durango up to Silverton in a van shuttle with an expert driver. Our driver was Mr Lee. He did an exceptional job of informing us, and taking great care of us during our trip up to Silverton, and our subsequent jeep adventure thereafter. To say it was an incredible adventure is an understatement. It made such a difference having an expert guide along the way. I consider myself a very good driver. My profession is truck driving so I have accumulated a vast number of miles in my 20 years of experience, but you don't get to enjoy it like you would if you were a passenger. Also, I usually have great anxiety when others are driving and not myself, but not with Mr Lee he made me feel at ease and confident in his ability right away. It takes a lot of training and wisdom to be able to handle those mountains, and especially the off-road Terrain which Lee was trained in. I believe I would have had too much anxiety, and not enjoyed the trip as much, had I just took the forerunner up the mountain myself for the first time. It's such a pleasure to have someone else drive and just enjoy the scenery and knowledge they share. It also gave me more confidence that maybe next time I might decide to Drive it out myself. I swear the whole time my wife and i kept feeling like we were in a painting or a movie. It didn't seem real the beauty that we were surrounded by. Fortunately any time we wanted to stop, and at different times where he knew really cool things were, he would let us get out and touch colorado and explore. We ran into lots of folks that were adventurers. Making a go of it by themselves, and not doing a very good job at it. I think I probably would have cussed them myself for the way they were driving, but Lee was a constant professional and made sure to keep us out of harm's way. We got to see all kinds of old mine camps and mines. It was so cool just to really feel like your part of something so beautiful. He would often times pull off and show us an amazing scenery that we wouldn't have caught had we not known where to look. He would then offer to take our picture and did so frequently throughout the trip. When our time ended with Mr Lee we were left to explore Silverton on our own, and enjoyed the various shops and lunch at a realy good restaurant "Handle Bars". We had a delicious elk burger, mud pie and bread pudding dessert. We then caught the train back to Durango. ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL!!!! You just don't get to see this stuff unless you're on that train. The mountains, the waterfalls, the wildlife, just incredible... We wouldn't have missed it for the world. However, I do believe that it would not be nearly as fun trying to ride the train up from Durango, and back down again three and a half hours each way. That's just too much... The Mild to Wild jeep adventure and train is the only way to go! If you are as fortunate as we are, maybe you will get Mr Lee too. Happy trails friends!