Re: One last trek to the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

Here's some more aerial views of the MSP country.

Here's a view from the southwest side of Speckerman Mountain looking east towards the high Sierra:


The road in the lower part of the picture is the MSP grade used from 1925-1927 to reach the timber to the southeast.
The Nelder Grove of Sequoia was on the right, middle of the picture. The main grove was destroyed by the fire. The mill at Sugar Pine is just off the picture to the left. The Railroad Fire heavily damaged the trees in this section with up to 100% mortality of the forest.

Rolling out of the turn we're looking at Fresno Dome, a large granite rock that juts out of the surrounding forest:


A quick fly by of Fresno Dome shows no one currently on top.


We are looking to the Northwest. Speckerman Mountain is on the left side of the photo.

MSP logged up to the base (on the right side background of the photo) of Fresno Dome in 1923-24. This area did not burn so it is very hard to find traces of railroad grades in the forest.

Heading back towards Sugar Pine I snapped a quick photo of the mill pond:


Not much else is visible from 1500' up....

Finally, I snapped a quick photo of the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine area:


The railroad and its shops are hidden in the trees, but you can see the Narrow Gauge Inn and a small bit of smoke in the forest from one of the Shays.
You can also see how close the extreme damage to the forest from the Railroad Fire is to the YMSP.

Time to fly home....

To be continued...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2018 12:47PM by Dave Peterson.