Re: One last trek to the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

Martin;
Good to see you as well! Wish I could have stayed longer. Glad you are enjoying the trek through MSP country.

Continuing our exploration of Madera Sugar Pine. As indicated previously, Gary parked his Jeep at several locations in the woods and we spent a couple of hours walking the railroad grades and looking for artifacts. Its always a nice hike and Gary wanted some exercise.

At one location near the grade, I spotted what looked like a flat area that may have held a donkey engine. Climbing up to it I found several donkey parts that indicated there had been a donkey here and at one point they had broken it. Here's a broken eccentric from a donkey's valve gear:

There was also a broken rod end here. Possibly, both were related.

The largest piece was this partially salvaged Fairlead:

This device would be on the front of a large donkey to help guide the cable as it played out and was pulled back in. Someone has removed several of the rollers that would have been present.

Finally, at one point I walked a feet feet off grade due to the call of nature and happened to stumble upon this double headed axe head:

In the early days, loggers would use these for felling trees. Later, they would use these for cleaning off branches. A pretty neat find! Probably no one has visited it since it was dropped by some logger over 80 years ago...

That's all for now. I may actually go back again next weekend if the weather holds (we really need rain!) and explore some of the other locations I haven't got to yet...