Yup, I saw that train a comin'! It's comin' 'round the bend!

I am not a "train guy". Never was, until I was invited to see a speaker show his movie and then talk about it. I had seen the video on PBS about a year earlier and thought that it was cool. Just cool. After watching the video again and hearing the guy talk, the voices kicked in...you know, the VOICES! They pestered me for days! They forced me to search out this guy and buy his book. What a fascinating book! RAILS, TALES AND TRAILS by BILL GEORGE. I started looking up the settlements that popped up along the Transcontinental railroad as it was being built, and looking at satellite views of the area that Bill wrote about. The Sierra Nevada mountain range from Sacramento, Ca to Donner Lake. Yes, THAT Donner Lake. I live in those mountains, but never thought of the trains much. I hear them every morning at 5 a.m. from my home.

Then the voices (the evil whispering ones!) started telling me how "awesome" it would be for me to hike the railroad from the summit to Sacramento following the tracks! Just 100 miles or so. E.Z.! they said! It's not like I'd get lost, the tracks go right to Sacramento!

Looking North at Castle Peak

I called Bill and told him of my plan (leaving out the thing about the voices! I needed his help!) and he led me to many informative sites and contacts. I received a phone call soon after that and a gentleman told me, 

" You can't make it! You'll die up there! There's no water and you can't just eat the gas station food nearby along the way, it'll kill you! Forget about it!"

Well, I was quite disappointed and depressed after that call. Bill pumped me back up and I decided to go for it anyway!

Just before leaving, I weighed the pack. 90 LBS.! I WAS going to die up there! I had Ten day's worth of food, cold and wet weather clothing, camera gear, a big ol' 44 magnum for protection(BEARS, BOBCATS, AND BUMS... BRING IT!), filters, cooking gear, extra everything, and a beautiful American Flag. Completely prepared for ten days of hiking without any way of getting supplies!

So, at about 6:30 a.m., on May 2, 2015, my beautiful newlywed wife dropped me off at Soda Springs, kissed me goodbye, watched me hobble across the road into the forest hiding the tracks, and drove away,away,away...

Abandoned Tunnel At Troy - 1895!

That first hundred feet was so incredible! "Yah dawg, hikin' the rails! Free wheelin'! Smooth sailin'! I'll do wat I want!"...Uh huh. I did mention a hundred feet right? I had been training with a forty pound pack! Let's do some math, shall we? 40 + 50 = 90! I knew I shouldn't have listened to those voices! Twenty minutes in and I was already dying! I made it through the tunnel at a place called TROY which has nothing but a wooden bench near the tracks. Just after leaving the tunnel, there was a crew of repairmen working on the tracks. Big machines throwing all kinds of rocks around. They finally moved down the tracks and I continued hiking, but now about three hours behind! I probably could have made it around them, if my pack had been forty pounds. I think I was a bit afraid of passing them because I would have to keep hiking! I found plenty of cold water in many streams along this part of the hike. Later on I wouldn't be so fortunate...

1st night's comfy bedroom!

I once read somewhere "Walking is just a  series of controlled falls forward." Well, that's what my hiking became! I was bumbling along mile after mile, waving at the passing trains, resting my pack on the lubricating boxes as often as I could, a pic here, a pic there, hoping the next turn would reveal the night's camp spot. First night on a slab of cold granite, above Rainbow Lodge near a frog pond. Night two, in an open old crew shack that had electricity and a light! I charged my cameras and phone, and watched trains go by until dark. A very scary place, but at least it was enclosed. The walls all had crazy writings from a person named "T" so I jammed a piece of wood against the doorknob and slept with my 44 in my hand. Every night brought a different scenario and every night also brought several trains going by. I woke up every two hours or so each night for a couple of weeks even after the hike had ended.

Sleeping quarters above Dutch Flat

What you might not know is the starting point of this hike was at 6768 ft elevation and my destination is 300 ft. elevation. All downhill! I planned it that way, I'm lazy! Who wants to hike 100 miles uphill?

When I arrived at Dutch Flat, I had to hike a 1 1/2 mile steep downhill road to the town. It killed my knees carrying all that extra weight! After resting in front of the store for awhile, a lady asked me if I needed a ride and, of course, I accepted. As we started up the hill, our conversation went something like this:

She; "Are you homeless?"

Me: "No... why?"

She: "I just thought I was taking some riff raff out of town."

OUCH! I explained what I was doing, she suggested where I might bed down and I thanked her for the ride. BUH BYE!

 The next morning I headed out toward Cape Horn and Colfax. To help you understand better, I couldn't just drop my pack when I wanted to rest, I had to find a wall, stump, rock, or large fallen tree so my pack was elevated. It was too heavy to pick up from the ground. That limited my stopping and caused me to keep going even when I wanted to stop.

I reached Colfax later that afternoon and someone there told me about a hotel. I found it and got the last room available! I'm not a bather, I'm a showerer. I took an hour long bath, ate a large pizza at a parlor nearby, and slept in a bed far from the tracks! I even sat down at a restaurant the next morning and had a real, hot breakfast! Ain't life grand! But, Alas, I still had to keep hiking. I went to the post office and shipped a few unneeded items from my pack, but, when weighed, it only lightened my pack by FIVE Pounds! Bummer!

Weimar Drainage Tunnel - AKA Rain Shelter!

From the beginning, I was very excited to reach certain places. After hiking right through Secret Town and not finding the "stone oven" in the side of the trestle that I wanted to examine, even as I hiked right over it, I realized that I might miss certain places because of the misery I was going through carrying that heavy pack! I tried to time these events but it didn't always work out.

 The next day, I made it to Weimar and found a fairly hidden spot to sleep before it got dark. Had I looked around a little, I would have found the under track tunnel. I was awakened in the middle of the night by thunder, lightning, hail and rain! After half hour waiting for the storm to move on, I got up and THEN hunted for shelter. That's when I found the drain tunnel. So much for sleep! I was soaked and that morning was the closest I came to giving up and taking a bus ride back home! It was noon before I was dry enough to get moving again. For every high, there is an equal low...

 I was on my way to "TUNNEL 0" and I planned to sleep there if I got there at noon or midnight! I met a couple in Applegate, while charging my camera in an outlet on the side of little hotel, and the guy gave me a cord that fit my gear and my solar charger! Halfway there(I thought) and just getting to use the charger I had carried the whole way!  I hiked through a tunnel and knew I had to be close to Tunnel 0, but couldn't find it anywhere! I saw a little rabbit track up a hill, and when I climbed up it, there it was on my left!! EUREKA! The tree covering the entry to TUNNEL 0! Had I been close to a road, I could have hiked out and gone home satisfied with my journey. This made my hike worth while. I slept good that night because the trains went around me and were not as loud there as they were everywhere else so far. This was a HIGH!