Re: Another day on the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

Continuing down the spur (heading northwest) we encounter an area that appeared to have several loading sites and a bench wide enough for two tracks:


The spur continues around a curve and is now heading northeast. Here's a look behind us:

Larry is standing on the grade. Behind him you can see the notch in the distant hillside where the spur began (and the bottom of the Crow Peak incline is located). Crow Peak is to the left.

The grade heads northeast a few hundred more feet, then dead ends into the hillside:


Near the end of the grade was this piece of rail:


Rolling it over revealed a date of 1908:


BTW- While I seem to have been the first person to explore many of these sites after the Ferguson Fire, this site contained fresh footprints of someone else who excavated and removed artifacts. In fact, I visited several sites during the day that appeared to have been gone over with a metal detector. Many of the artifacts unearthed were left exposed, but some were taken only leaving the hole behind. With that said, there are still plenty of locations I've seen numerous artifacts that have not been taken. I'll leave their locations in the dark...

To be continued...