Work Party On Homestake Pass

Jim and John battle through the sage on the eastern climb.

    Following the 2008 Tour of the Northwest (The Raffle Tour) Jim, John and I went to Montana to spend two days clearing the line over Homestake Pass.  John had an electric chain saw and the others hand saws and loppers.  It was hot and the going tough.  Dozens of young evergreens were cut from between the rails and alongside the right-of-way.  The sage, however, was too thick to deal with and we just had to plow through it.

The first day

we were able to clear

up the grade past the two steel bridges before the heat got to us.

At right, Jim poses on the

first of the two great spans.

On returning to our

vehicles, Jim had his

derailleur torn off his bike by some brush we had missed on the way out. Fortunately, the remaining eight miles was all down hill and he was able to coast the entire distance.

The second day we rode

from the summit down the

western slope into the

outskirts of Butte.

The westernmost portal of the tunnel had totally rotted and was in danger of imminent collapse.

         This boulder has been     on the line for many years,      but two other much larger     rocks have fallen in one of    the cuts. The mountainside               above looked very            precarious and the cut

        may soon be closed off                            completely.

The steel bridge

on the western slope has got

to be one of the most

spectacular in the country.

John admires the stunning view

of the rocky mountainside

and valley far below.

I precede John as we descend the western slope.  About a mile after crossing the steel bridge we ran into a long stretch

of mature Aspens.  I disassemble my railbike and rode down

a trail alongside the tracks, but John and Jim fought their way

through the heavy growth and joined me close to the bottom an hour later.

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Peter Hoffman