Sonya's Blog - Day 301 - The Sugar Pine Railroad

Sonya’s Blog - Day 301 - April 18th - The Sugar Pine Railroad

When we were at the Civil War Battle yesterday we were given a magazine about Mariposa County and things to do in the area. We saw that in Fish Camp, which is about 1/2 hour north of our campsite, has a steam train that does tours. We thought it would be good to go check it out. The tour goes through 4 miles of the Sierra National forest and we will be on a train that is powered by a locomotive. The tracks are narrow gauge, as these are easier to lay down in forests, and were used to haul logs from the logging operations in this area. The cars that we will sit in were once used to haul the logs, but have been retrofitted for tourists. We could have brought Kizmet with us, but we figured that she would be far too scared of the train whistle and the train in general. When we first got her, we were walking along a trail that went under a train trestle bridge. When the train went over, Kizmet was off leash and she just bolted. Poor thing was so scared. Luckily she, eventually, looped around and came back unharmed, but she was nervous the rest of the day. We think she is better staying behind and relaxing.

We ended up on Shay #15, which was built in 1913 for the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Co. It stayed in service through to 1961 in the lumber trade. It then moved into service in the tourist trade and is now part of the Sugar Pine Railroad operations.

We learned lots about the lumber operations in the early 1900’s. They would lay down the track for the railroads and then log out in a wheel like operation. When the area had been logged, they simply picked up the tracks and moved to a new location and started over. They always left a few trees and the growth of the forest we were going through was a result of natural regeneration from the trees that were left. You couldn’t tell it had ever been logged. This forest was completely logged about 85 years ago.

The loggers built a flume system to get the logs to the valley below. They had hauled them by hand carts down to the valley originally, but this proved to be too labour intensive. Flumes were much more efficient, so they used these instead. Not only did they use the flumes to transfer the logs, they also transferred the workers if they wanted to go to town. They built a wooden car that the guys could sit in and then they would send them down. There was nothing to control the speed and they could reach 50 miles per hour, with nothing to hold them in. Once they had enjoyed their time in the town, the workers had to find their own way back to the operation, since the flume only travels one way.

The halfway point on our trip:

It was not a very long train ride, altogether it was only an hour and that included a 15 minute stop at the halfway point. It was nice and relaxing and it smelled so nice in the deep forest, well until the train started belching out the wonderful black smoke, see photo:

We bought a snack in the gift store when we were done and headed into Yosemite National Park. We were about 20 minutes away from the South entrance. This is not the main entrance, but there is still stuff to see. First, we found a place to have our packed lunch. It was a beautiful day and it was lovely to be eating outside. The other bonus is that the bugs are not too bad, yet, being that it is early spring still.

We then looked around the Wawona area, which is where we were in Yosemite National Park. We would have like to go to Mariposa Grove to check out the Giant Sequoias, but it is closed until 2017 for a restoration project. That is unfortunate, but I did read that there is another grove where we can see Giant Sequoias in Yosemite. It is quite far away from where we are, so we will need to do it tomorrow when we go to the west gate of Yosemite.

Isaac goofing around after lunch:

After our lunch, we walked around Wawona. There was a fantastic covered bridge and then some old buildings from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, for early residents and workers in this area. We read all the placards and enjoyed looking at the buildings. We then headed down to the Merced River to check it out, got a great pic of Isaac.

This was used to store gun powder and then later as a jail, it's massive!

When we were done, we drove for a bit through the park and then headed back to camp to rescue Kizmet.

A view of Yosemite from a roadside turnout in the park:

The roadside turnout:

When we got back I took Kizmet on a nice long walk through the golf course. It was about 26 degrees outside and we had a lovely time.

Enjoying the abandoned golf course, they left nice walking paths for us:

Kizzy loves the greens:

After supper we decided to watch Ladyhawke, with Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Broderick. The movie was fine, not the greatest movie I have ever seen. There was beautiful scenery. It was interesting that everyone had french names, but there were no french accents. We all wanted to see it because it is mentioned so many times in Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Well, now if I read the book again I will know which scenes he is referencing.

Sonya