Sullylife: Iron Goat

There is this GREAT hike on the way up Stevens Pass from Monroe. It is called the Iron Goat Trail. A few weeks ago we attempted it and were extremely impressed by the trails and the artifacts on the trail! It is basically a series of switchbacks used by the Great Northern Railway to get up Stevens Pass (apparently the lead engineer on the railway had a last name of Stevens) before the 8 mile tunnel opened up in 1929. There are lots of old concrete features - mainly snowsheds but some retaining walls and a few tunnels! Right up our alley! There were signposts along the way that told of the history of the railway and why things were done the way they were done. Overall we did nearly 7 miles of trail. But with numerous crossover trails you could do up to 16 miles or so of trail. It was well worth it! For more information visit the website for the trail - http://www.irongoat.org .

Posing in front of an abandoned tunnel on the Iron Goat Trail.

Tim, Conor, and Bailey posing in front of the same tunnel.

One of the concrete snowshed walls along the hike. We were diggin' this!

How cool! It came with its own irrigation methods. Bailey thought it was her own water bowl!

Exposed rebar along the wall. Tim and I just couldn't get enough of this. Square rebar? Sweet.

All concrete features along the trail had the year they were completed stamped in them. This particular snowshed was finished in 1917. The year we entered WWI as a nation. Unbelievable. I love this stuff.

Here is a wooden spillway for a water resevoir above one of the snowsheds. This wood has been there for probably around 90 years or so and was integral in helping build a resevoir to fight fires that the exhaust from the steam engines started in the valley below. Fires lead to no trees. No trees lead to avalanches. Avalanches lead to damaged tracks and lost revenue. Therefore do everything to prevent the fires.