Cascade Tunnel Hike

Railroads and their history have always been interesting to me, so I jumped at a chance to see the old Cascade Tunnel at Stevens Pass in central Washington. 

My hike started at the Iron Goat Trailhead at the bottom of the west side of Stevens Pass on Highway 2. This old caboose sits there. 

There are many concrete walls here and there along the trail, which were the walls for snow sheds. This wall is just a little bit away from the highway. All snow sheds but one had wooden roofs, held up by timber. More about that special one that was all concrete a little later on.

 1720 miles to St. Paul, Minnesota. 

This is the east portal of the Windy Point Tunnel. It was built in 1914.

Looking way down the hill from the Windy Point Tunnel, one can see the west portal of the current (since 1929) Cascade Tunnel, which sees around 28 trains per day. I got lucky and caught one of them on the way back down. An auto-rack train was slowly descending out of the tunnel.

The further uphill, the more snow I ran into. There were two snow slides that were as high as the old concrete snow shed walls that had to be crossed. The power of an avalanche is tremendous! The main trunks of the trees had every branch ripped off of them, and needles, small branches, and stones were scattered everywhere. 

When one reaches the all concrete snow shed, you are near the site of the worst train avalanche disaster in US history. The west end of the snow shed is beginning to come down.

 At the site of the train / avalanche disaster, there is a wooden walk out to a small memorial, and one can look down the slope below where the trains were carried by the avalanche.

Looking down to where the trains came to rest.

East end of the concrete snow shed.

After Wellington, I had a bit of trouble finding the tunnel. Some of the signs were still under snow, so I didn't have much indication as to what direction to go . Finally, I saw the tunnel and some signs that weren't snow covered.

One last photo - this is looking to the north-west, along the valley floor as Highway 2 and the railroad wind their way to Everett, Washington.