Clouds over Echo Lake, CA in the afternoon

Clouds over Echo Lake, CA in the afternoon

High above Donner Lake, CA is an abandoned railroad bed originally carved out of the mountain in 1867. Part is built of concrete, and part is bored out of solid rock. The real attraction for me was the extraordinary graffiti inside the tunnel.

2 thoughts on “Clouds over Echo Lake, CA in the afternoon

  1. Bill Spaulding says:

    Great photo—you captured a really pretty cloud formation. Re the RR tunnels, Maggie and I took the Amtrac train to Reno two March’s ago when we actually had snow and it was a wonderful ride from Martinez to downtown Reno where you walk across the street to Harrah’s from the train station. Amtrac is notoriously late but they have a phone app where you get real time updates so you do not have leave the hotel until a few minutes before it arrives.

    Another tip, when you board, forget your seat assignment, go straight to the vista dome car and stay there for the trip. The views are spectacular

    A docent from the Sacatomatoes RR Muesum borded and gave us the history of how the tunnels were built. Seems they started from the west side but is was very slow going so to keep things on schedule they started another tunnel from the east side to meet in the middle. Still not fast enough so they dig from the top down at the midpoint and when they reached the level they started two more tunnels east and west from the midpoint. They had four digs going and they all met. Now consider this was done with no computers, no GPS, and only sextants, chains and measuring tapes underground. Amazing. It is a ride everybody should take but stay off the party train and take regular Amtrac, and do it in the winter.

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