Donner Pass Summit abandoned tunnels: one of the creepiest hike in Northern California

2 min read

2 years ago Leo S

Theodore Judah had a dream: build a railroad through the Central Pacific, routed via the Sierra Nevada mountains.
It was the mid-19th century when the civil engineer surveyed a large stretch of the route to be used, also finding funds to make the transcontinental railroad a reality.
The tunnels at Donner Pass were constructed by Chinese laborers and took more than 15 months of hard work to finish.
A dozen tunnels were some of the most treacherous parts of the transcontinental railroad, linking the rail networks of Omaha, Nebraska, to the West Coast at Oakland, and they were constructed through the use of hand drilling, black powder, and nitroglycerin, leading to an untold number of worker deaths.
Also extensive snowsheds were built between the tunnels, that can still be seen from the nearby interstate.
A series of tunnels, now-abandoned, were completed in August 1867, and the first train passed through it in 1868. Unfortunately, our Theodore did not live to see this happen, as he died in 1863 during an eastbound voyage in connection with his dream project.
Interestingly, the Donner Pass and the tunnels are named after the “Donner Party”, a group of explorers en route to California in the spring of 1846 who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada region due to heavy snow and resorted to cannibalism to survive.

In 1925, the railroad built a second route over Donner Pass nearby, Tunnel 41 or “the Big Hole”, going directly through and under Mt Judah, named for the railroad pioneer.
This 3147 meters (10,325ft) long tunnel relieved congestion on the line, and both routes over Donner Pass were used side by side until 1993 when Union Pacific elected to cut costs by abandoning the original route built by the Chinese in favor of Tunnel 41.
The tunnel and snowsheds now sit abandoned and, despite being on private property, are a popular place for curious hikers and snowshoers.
The dark Tunnel #6, which took tens of thousands of hours to complete, is the most famous of the tunnels, while Tunnels #7 and #8, together with the “Chinese Wall”, which was built to hold up the trains as they transitioned between two tunnels, are the other parts of the system that are commonly visited.
A walk through the fairly dark tunnels, with light pouring in only at points where the wall has openings, can be an eerie experience, and ancient petroglyphs can also be found nearby, marked with a plaque.