Re: Another day on the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

Continuing on towards the 1917 camp the road still follows the grade. Much of this area escaped serious damage from the Ferguson Fire. The grade and road finally diverge after about another mile. Here's the grade continuing on into the forest:



I followed the grade through the trees and it seemed to end just beyond here at a tributary of Rush Creek, although the map in Thunder in the Mountains indicates it should go further than the creek crossing.

As it was getting late, this was the limit of our exploring on this day.

A couple of further notes: I studied the area at the bottom of the Crow Peak incline and now think the track plan looked more like this:


This is a very unusual track plan as most of the time the storage tracks are not distinct from the mainline.

Also, on the spur we explored towards Devil Peak, we found an unmarked spur that headed down to a lower area. I've marked it on my copy of Thunder in the Mountains:

I don't know how much further it went as it was very brushy...

Finally, the spur indicated on Donald Devere's map that supposedly branches of at the top of the Crow Peak incline doesn't seem to exist. I spent some time trying to find traces of it and came up empty. Interestingly, this spur is not indicated on the map in Hank Johnston's "The Whistles Blow No More".

Lastly, here's a couple of artifacts (without locations) that I found interesting:

This is the point off a choker hook. Looks like the load was a little too much for it.


Probably the head of one of the tools used to grade this piece of ROW...

Til next time....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2019 11:41PM by Dave Peterson.