Yet Another Day on the Madera Sugar Pine Grades...

Last Sunday, my wife and I left home slightly after 6 am. My mission was to explore the Madera Sugar Pine line out to Granite Creek Saddle and on to the end of the line:

I had tried to get out here last July, but found the grade blocked by several fallen trees that were impossible to navigate my bike over. I was hoping that someone had cleared the line by this month.

Here we are at the side of the grade:

I'm parked about 1/2 mile before the switchbacks. At this point the ROW gets so brushy that I was going to scratch the paint on my truck if I continued. I had originally planned to do this alone, but my wife is always up for an adventure particularly if it involves biking...

When we got to the previous location of the fallen tree blockage, it was nice to see that someone (probably in a jeep) had cleared a big enough path that we easily cycled through the area. At this point the grade turns from heading north to heading west. Here's a photo of the grade heading west:

It looks wide enough here to have had a siding.

It is interesting to again notice the patchy nature of the Ferguson Fire. Some areas had a low temperature ground fire, while others were scorched earth...

The grade was passable on bike, but there were several small trees that had fallen across the grade since anyone had last come through. I had brought a small saw and each time we encountered a tree across the grade, I would cut a path through the branches and then hoist our bikes over it to continue...

Eventually we got to a tree that I couldn't tackle:


To be continued...