Re: One last trek to the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

When I was searching Google Earth for traces of the Madera Sugar Pine grades, I saw some object at the end of the Granite Creek Saddle:

I wondered if this was somehow railroad related. Was it a concrete foundation for a hoist house? Some piece of equipment? Unfortunately Google Earth did not give enough resolution...

When we got to the end of the railroad grade it turned out to be a large pile of rocks:

My suspicion is they are from the mine that is supposedly down on the west side of the ridge.

After spending about 15 minutes at the end of the line we started to retrace our steps. It would be about 2 hours from here to Mariposa. About 1/4 mile back there appeared to be a spur heading northwest up towards the top of the hill:


Here's a photo starting up the spur and looking back south down the "mainline":


To be continued...