Another day on the Madera Sugar Pine grades

On Tuesday, August 1, I went up to the Madera Sugar Pine country for further exploration. I was accompanied by fellow Redwood Valley Railway engineer Dan Miller, and the esteemed George Sapp. We went to continue the exploration of the 1908-1917 logging line that followed Big Creek then climbed out of the canyon and up the slopes of Hogan Mountain. Below is the area we explored as seen of Donald DeVere's map in Johnston's Thunder in the Mountains:


The dashed line through the map is Chowchilla Mountain Road which was the main route to Yosemite before highway 41 was built. When President Teddy Roosevelt visited Yosemite he rode in on this road. It ends today at Wawona. The grade we will explore is the one that curls around the peak on the map and eventually ended up on the slopes of Hogan Mountain. The "Cr." is Laurel Creek.

I had heard that there were still remnants of the trestle that crossed Laurel Creek so we first bushwacked the grade west for about 1/4 mile and came upon this site:




6.5 foot tall George Sapp poses for reference:


Only these two bents and a couple of bent footings were still in existence on what was probably a 10-12 bent trestle. This trestle last saw a train around 1917...

More to come...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2023 11:42AM by Dave Peterson.