Monday, May 01, 2006

We took Shandi on a short hike to see an old train tunnel in the Cascade mountains while she was here.


We came across this small cascading waterfall on the way to the trailhead.


We went to a small section of the Iron Goat Railroad Grade. We think this series of trails is one of the greatest things about the North West.

You can access before and after shots of the area on their web page: http://www.irongoat.org/

The alders up here didn't quite have their leaves yet, unlike Seattle which is in full springtime bloom right now.


It was soothing to listen to the water as it trickled it's way down the sides of the rock walls along the trail.


Back a the turn of the 20th Century when the trains came thru here there were numerous problems with avalanches swiping across the tracks. The railroad put in wood snow shelters along the way to help keep the trains out of harms way. Wood being what it is, has rotted out, leaving piles of wood along the path where they once stood. This particular collapsed structure was erected in 1916.


It was nice of Suzi, Shandi and Samantha to get into this shot for scale. This tunnel was constructed in the early 1890's.


We saw lots of butterflies fluttering around during our hike.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This looks like a California Tortoise Shell butterfly