TWENTY ONE MILE TRAIL 120610

Twenty One Mile Trail 6/10/2012

Map

This USGS map was produced by "gtopo", a linux software program by Tom Trebisky. The map itself was further edited with "gimp" (like Photoshop but for Linux) which sized it, cropped, added and other markings.

From my house, went North of Anvil Mountain, around King Mountain, then following the red dots along the ridge, to exit about Mile 12 on the Glacier Creek Road (aka Jensen's Camp Road).

This is part of the crew

Seated in the side x side, Jimmy Murdock aged 13, and Ramon Gandia. Dr. Derrick Leedy and Glen Pardy, with Ramon's Dog Sydney prancing around.

Jimmy and Ramon fudzing with something

Seward Peninsula Railroad

This railway was finished in 1913, goes from Nome to Bunker hill, about 75 rail miles north. It was abandoned a few years later, but continued to serve into the 1960's using private, homebuilt locos.

Around 1964, the rails were bought from the State of Alaska for about $100,000, and mandatory removal of the ties. This is about $1 million today. The buyer intended to make a private, narrow gauge railroad at Avalon Island, offshore California. Once the rails got there, they were tested by the Federal Railroad people, and were found to be metallurgically inadequate. Over the winter the rails flex when the temperatures go from -40F to +50F, weakening the molecular bond. They had to be sold for scrap.

The first few miles of rail are still in place, like here.

Happy Girl

Another crew, Martina Leedy. She is always the Happy Girl on the trips; her smile never falters!

Sue Osborne, who took these pictures ... we never got a picture of her. We'll try to fix that soon.

Crossing the "Seward Peninsula Ditch"

This was deep snow, maybe six feet deep, but it was hard and firm, and Ramon's 6 x 6 Polaris Ranger had no trouble getting across.

Jimmy takes over for a while

He had the time of his young life, and will likely ride with us on on other trips this summer.

View from the 21-mile trail

Vista from the ridge!