Another day on the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

Yesterday, (Oct. 5) I went back to the MSP country with a co-worker (Gary Wilkes) who wanted to go jeeping. Our goal was to explore out to the end of the Granite Creek Gap grade and also explore the incline and 1929-1930 camp on the north side of Chowchilla Mountain. On our way down the grade we ran into a Forest Service truck with two archaeologists who were documenting the railroad grades of the MSP. They had a full sized truck, but no chainsaws and many fallen trees had only been cleared wide enough for a jeep. Gary saved the day by cutting up many fallen trees allowing the archaeologists to get much closer to their goal of exploring the incline and 1929-30 camp (same place we were headed). Here's Gary (on the right) making a wider path for the Forest Service guys:


We spent a lot of time walking the grade and looking for artifacts. We also saw many of these tracks:

and these tracks:

Lions and bears (but no tigers) Oh My!!!!

At one location we found a donkey engine site with lots of wire rope and a significant can dump:


At another location, we found a piece of corrugated metal such as those used as shelters for donkey engines and the McGiffert loader:


To be continued...