Re: Another day on the Madera Sugar Pine grades

These trestle remnants are the most I've found so far of any of the MSP's numerous trestles.

After this discovery we followed the right of way east across Chowchilla Mountain road as the grade climbed uphill. I had attempted this back in June, but the brush was too dense. With three of us we managed to find a way through. A little ways in we came across what had either been a fill or trestle site, but a significant slide event had taken place:


There was barely enough room for a narrow trail to cross this section.

From time to time we encountered a tie still in place:


About 500 feet later we came to the site of a large 12-14 bent trestle built into the side of the hill:

Looking up grade at the large trestle site


Looking down grade at the large trestle site

There were still scattered large timbers at the site which made me wonder how long this bridge survived. All of the remaining timbers had fire damage from the 2018 Ferguson Fire. This was the first place we saw fire damage as the fire had not descended deeper in to Big Creek canyon.
In addition, there were numerous large nails used to build the trestles scattered around the site. No bolts were seen and it appears that MSP did not use bolts in their trestle construction.

Here's a sample of artifacts found at the trestle site:


More later...