Steam & Excursion > Donner Pass abandoned snow sheds, February 9th (photos)

I hope this finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy.

February 9th I spent the morning hiking and exploring the abandoned show sheds and tunnels near the summit on Donner Pass in California. At elevation 7,056 feet, Donner is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada range, above Donner Lake; 9 miles west of Truckee, California.

Donner Summit receives 35-40 feet of snow per year and sometimes 70. Snowdrifts can be dozens of feet high, with the constant possibility of avalanches. To keep trains safe and moving, the Central Pacific Railroad built forty miles of snowsheds to protect their tracks. Used were 65 million board feet of lumber and 900 tons of bolts and spikes. Eventually snow fighting equipment improved and some of the sheds were removed. The remaining sheds were rebuilt of concrete so that collapse was no longer a threat. Trains used these tunnels for 125 years, until 1993 when the line was rerouted to a new tunnel running through nearby Mount Judah. To think that Southern Pacific class AC 6000 horsepower 4-8-8-2 cab forward locomotives once made daily multiple round trips over the Donner Pass route between Sacramento and Reno, Nevada.

Follow the link below to my gallery of images from the hike, which are in chronological order from west to east, as I started at the west portal of tunnel #6 at Sugar Bowl Road, photo 2. The weather conditions were not the best for this activity, but I guess if I’m going to explore snow sheds I should do it on a nasty winter day.

Link to Photos

Enjoy,
Matthew  

thanks, Mathew, fascinating series. Were you on snowshoes, skis, snow machine? d

Good grief, even up there the ghetto taggers have done their thing.  Disgusting.

Thank you Dave.
None of the above. A pair of North Face winter boots.
Matthew



dpudave Wrote:
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> thanks, Mathew, fascinating series. Were you on
> snowshoes, skis, snow machine? d

Thanks for sharing your stunning photos. Incredible efforts were needed to allow year round operations through that heavy snow country. Appreciate your efforts.

   Ross Rowland 

Ice flooring- yeow!  Looks like treacherous footing.
SR

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> Good grief, even up there the ghetto taggers have
> done their thing.  Disgusting.

What makes you think they're from "the ghetto"? 

Forgive an Easterner's ignorance, but when was this segment abandoned?

Gordon

SP quit using track 1 around 1992. Tunnel 41, built for eastward trains about 1925, is now the only track.

Fantastic photos, as always, Matthew.  Thanks for sharing them, they are art works.

What I did not anticipate when starting this day's hike was the ice floor in the tunnels and shed, made the going very slow in spots.

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Ice flooring- yeow!  Looks like treacherous
> footing.
> SR

Yeah, no kidding! AND the sheds are, for the most part, on the north facing side of the hill- the proverbial Shady Side of the Iceberg.
I posted a similar photo tour a few years ago- but from the rooftops in summer. I very nice walk on a warm summer’s day!
SR

Very nice set of photos.  Thank you, Matthew, for braving the elements and the icy floors to get those photos.

Nice pictures.  It is pathetic though that people have to "tag" all that.  One question.  In photo #14, did part of the sheds collapse? 
In previous pictures taken by different people(s) at different times never have seen snow in the snow sheds.
Maybe some day/year trains will run here again.  We all know (unfortunately) never will happen.

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