Donner Summit Snow Sheds Final Run 2012

Months after the final Golden Spike was hammered into place and the very first transcontinental railroad was open for service, an avalanche near Donner Summit damaged hundreds of feet of track and a subsequent blizzard left miles more buried under deep snow. Service on the railroad ground to a halt for weeks and as soon as the snows thawed, 42 miles of snowsheds would be built by the Central Pacific Railroad to protect their line. Initally constructed out out of 65 million board feet of lumber, the original snowsheds were soon replaced with stonger and fire resistant concrete structures and, are what you can find still standing today.

For 130 years, Central Pacific, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and AMTRAK ran trains though these snowsheds and was only abandoned and left to sit idle back in 1997. Up the summer of 2012, you could actually drive your Jeep through these amazing snowsheds but, for one reason or another, Union Pacific finally decided to construct a permanent barrier and block off vehicular access. Lucky for us, we were able to take Moby through one last time before they were closed and, these are some pics we took our final trip through. I hope you enjoy.

Before heading into the snowsheds, we took some time to explore the surrounding area just outside of them. Here you can see Moby crossing over the old Lincoln Highway Donner Summit Rainbow Bridge which was built in 1926...




View driving across this wonderful bridge, something that would not have been possible without the help of the Nevada County Board of Supervisors who helped provide $1.6 million to have it restore back in 1993...


Hiking up to the "Chinese Wall". This lower half stands 75 feet tall and was made almost entirely by hand...


Shot of an old underpass that was constructed back in 1914 and provided vehicular passage along the old Donner Pass Road before the completion of Highway 40 and the Donner Summit Bridge in 1926...


View from the other side - notice the Donner Summit Rainbow bridge in the distance...


View looking through the concrete Tunnel #7 with Tunnel #6, also known as the Summit Tunnel in the distance...


Standing on top of Tunnel #7 looking back at Tunnel #6...


View looking ahead at the Upper Chinese Wall built in 1867 by Chinese laborers and Tunnel #8 beyond...




Looking back out toward the Donner Summit Rainbow bridge and Donner Lake beyond. If you look closely, you should also be able to just make out Moby...


This area is a popular rock climbing destination and if you look real close, you can see a guy on the rock face...


Another view of the concrete snowshed that makes up Tunnel #7...


Making our way into Summit Tunnel...


View looking back out...


Heading down into the snowsheds...




We drove all the way to the end of the accessible snowshed before taking more photos and this shot is actually of us going back into the last tunnel...






Moving further along with lights blazing ahead...




Another couple of shots deeper in with just the ambient light coming through the ventilation ports and rock lights on Moby...








Many sections of the tunnels are filled with shallow pools of water...






There are a lot more ventilation ports where the tunnels become enclosed sections of concrete snowsheds...




In these sections, lights really aren't needed...




As mentioned, these awesome snowsheds are now closed to vehicular traffic. When we went back to the snowsheds in October, this is what we found...




For a while, you could get in from the back way but, from what I understand, that is being closed now too. You can still hike up to the Chinese Wall and gain un-restricted access to the snowsheds from there but, that's about it. I would still recommend them you check them out as they are a big part of California history and, really cool to see.

So awesome! :thumb:

I cannot wait to go check these out next year. Bummer that I will not be able to drive in them. :grayno:

Thanks for sharing!

Wow that's awesome! 42 miles of tunnel... Were you able to drive the entire length?

I'm surprised it wasn't set up as a state park for people to drive through.

Thanks for the pics! Maybe one day I'll make it to California.

I want to go there! Defiantly on the list! Awesome write up and pics!

I love history like this! I really want to check this out... hopefully someday they re-open them so many can enjoy these tunnels. :thumb:

MTG said:

So awesome! :thumb:

I cannot wait to go check these out next year. Bummer that I will not be able to drive in them. :grayno:

Thanks for sharing!

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it is a bummer that you can't drive through them anymore but, they are definitely worth seeing.

Doknocker said:

Wow that's awesome! 42 miles of tunnel... Were you able to drive the entire length?

I'm surprised it wasn't set up as a state park for people to drive through.

Thanks for the pics! Maybe one day I'll make it to California.

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The tunnels are still owed by Union Pacific and I believe the 42 miles of tunnles include all the tunnels for all the lines going through the area. This is just one of the lines.

sm_rubi said:

Sad to see thing constantly become out-of-bounds, close or off limits. Glad you were able to document it for those of us who will never get to explore them. :thumb: Have to admit some of those graffiti artist have made skills!

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The tunnels have become a canvas for them and the area is well known for it. I suppose better in them than out in the forest.

JKRay said:

I love history like this! I really want to check this out... hopefully someday they re-open them so many can enjoy these tunnels. :thumb:

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I don't think they'll be reopening them to vehicles anytime soon but, you can still access them on foot over by the Chinese Wall.

I wonder what U.P. is doing with them. I really cant see them re-opening that portion of track to main line traffic. Todays double stack container or intermodal traffic is much too tall for most of the abandoned tunnels. Maybe it will be used to store track maintenance on-rail machinery. Who knows, just sad we cant drive through them anymore. They were fun while they were there. Nice pictures btw.

wayoflife said:

The tunnels have become a canvas for them and the area is well known for it. I suppose better in them than out in the forest.

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Yea I wouldn't mind walking to them. Gives me a chance to do a little exceeding haha

Thanks for the photo essay. I enjoy your history lessons as much as the excellent pics. "Wheeling" in this context is often overlooked.:yup:

That's a very cool area, I'd like to see that.

Did you guys go up the fire trail on top of the tunnels by any chance? It goes rather far.

JKJody said:

I wonder what U.P. is doing with them. I really cant see them re-opening that portion of track to main line traffic. Todays double stack container or intermodal traffic is much too tall for most of the abandoned tunnels. Maybe it will be used to store track maintenance on-rail machinery. Who knows, just sad we cant drive through them anymore. They were fun while they were there. Nice pictures btw.

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I've heard all kinds of stories but the one that might have some merit is that someone at a recent party up there fell and got seriously hurt or killed.

Linebacker said:

Thanks for the photo essay. I enjoy your history lessons as much as the excellent pics. "Wheeling" in this context is often overlooked.:yup:

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As much as we like to take on a hard trail, stuff like this has always been our first love and what got us into Jeeps in the first place.

Trail Bud said:

That's a very cool area, I'd like to see that.

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We can go up then next time you're up :yup:

JKJody said:

Did you guys go up the fire trail on top of the tunnels by any chance? It goes rather far.

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Oh yeah, we've done a lot of exploring up there and have taken the trails all the way back to Donner Lake. The original Immigrant Trail cuts through Deep Creek Canyon and there are markers that you can find there for it. Unfortunately, the last time we were there, one of the back routes had already been blocked with a similar gate and the only other route in looked like they were setting up to block it too. :grayno:

Not exactly a snowshed but, there are other small underpass tunnels in the area and here you can see us driving through one of them...

I was driving up 80 today and decided to cut through donner pass road. We stopped to look around and take pictures, and I recognized this area from the pictures you posted here. Decided to walk up to the tunnels and the rocky vista points. Does anyone know if there are any open Jeep trails in this area? I was in my car (POS Jeep still at stealership for 3 weeks waiting for repair) so I didn't really try to explore any trails or dirt roads.

There should be tons of trails up there. Trails.com should tell you where to find them. One i want to do next month from Boca to moonrocks NV. (North Reno). Hopefully i can make it. Bummer the tunnels are still closed. They were really fun.