Youtube Video - Introverted Travels: Hiking The Historic Donner Pass Trail

For my latest Youtube effort, the dog and I hiked the Historic Donner Pass Trail. This path starts near Sugar Bowl ski resort (I left my car in the big dirt parking lot right near the front), makes its way through the historic Donner Tunnels (more on this in a minute), and then up the side of Mount Judah before looping back again.

The highlight of this hike is easily the tunnels themselves. Currently owned and managed by Union Pacific, they were once part of the Transcontinental Railroad. For those of you who may not know, this was a rail line constructed in the 1860s that ran continuously from San Francisco to Council Bluffs, Iowa, with connections to the east coast beyond. When completed, it replaced the old system of slow wagon trails that took over a hundred perilous days to traverse and complete (Read Roughing It, by Mark Twain, for a more detailed description of this journey). At the time, the railroad was revolutionary, as it allowed people to travel from one side of the country to the other in less than a week.

Now, what I just described in the paragraph above is the “historical basic,” the bare minimum amount of information needed to understand the history of the rail line. But as is often the case, a deeper truth must be acknowledged: There would have been no Transcontinental railroad, and therefore no expansion into the west, without the thousands of Chinese laborers who immigrated to the United States to help construct the whole damn thing.

Greetings, from inside a historic train tunnel…

The tunnels and sheds at Donner Pass are a fitting example of this. They took sixteen months, including two snowy, grueling winters, to complete. They were supposed to be impossible to construct, since the technology available at the time made penetrating through granite mountainside incredibly difficult. But the crew of thousands worked around the clock, drilling through the rock by hand, and combining that effort with the use of black powder and nitroglycerin.

The end result was a mix of long rocky tunnel and wooden snow shed that snaked around the side of the mountain and descended down on either side.

In the 1990s, the tracks were removed, and the tunnels were retired. They were replaced by a railway that ran directly through the mountain itself, and that reflected the steep upgrade in engineering technology that had developed in the century since the Transcontinental railroad.

Soon after their decommission, the Donner tunnels began to attract tourists. Although technically private property, hikers and graffiti artists disregarded whatever minimal warning signage Union Pacific put up and ventured forward. Soon, the intricate hand carved tunnel walls became covered in sickening ugly spray-painted art, and the length of the snow sheds themselves were traveled daily by thrill-seekers.

I do not believe that the majority of these travelers came to explore living history. I’m not even sure many of these people even had a basic understanding of the original purpose for the tunnels.  Instead, I think many of them just saw “cool spooky railroad tunnels,” and wanted to test their bravery by plunging themselves into cavernous darkness and coming out on the other side.

This type of behavior continues to play out in current times. On the day, the dog and I took our hike, there were dozens of people climbing around the tunnels. Some were clinging to the stone walls. Others were making their way over the surrounding rocky cliffs and clawing onto the roof of the snow sheds. There was little regard for safety, and absolutely no attempt to respect and preserve the site’s historical importance.  Instead, I felt a thick air of “me me me,” as my fellow hikers did pretty much whatever the hell they wanted to. 

A view from the end (or beginning?) of the stretch of the tunnels.

At this point I should note that yes, I was hiking the tunnels too and technically trespassing. Having grown up in the woods and having free reign over the countryside in my youth, I am no stranger to jumping fences, crawling under wooden boards, or otherwise violating boundaries to run around and cause mischief. However, as an adult who has a basic understanding of history, with a specific interest in the time of “the old west,” I know that there are some things that must be respected to be enjoyed. As a rule, I did not deface anything within the tunnels, and I certainly did not crawl across snow sheds. I was there simply to document what I was seeing, and to do so in the most responsible but illegal way possible.

The specifics of my trip are detailed in the video that I posted above, so I will not expand upon them here. But I will note that I was pretty put off by what I was seeing around me. At what point should the behaviors of our fellow hikers be called out? Although no one was outwardly rude of threatening to one another, the antics of many in the tunnel did pose both a safety threat and a danger to the infrastructure. And for what reason? Basic adrenaline rush? Personal enjoyment and satisfaction?

The sad reality of what I was seeing is basic. There is no national recognition, nor protection, for the Donner Train Tunnels as a historical site. Instead, they are considered private property, and, to my knowledge, are not regulated or maintained. This has resulted in a strange form of calm anarchy, where travelers do whatever they please, and no one is present to tell them that they can’t.

It is a sad reality that these structures that were once so vital to the nation’s economic and transportation systems, have now been regarded as a relic of the past and mostly forgotten.

A wild flower found on the mountain side that overlooks the Donner Tunnels.

The ”mostly” in that last sentence is the important word there, as according to a 2022 article from Smithsonian Magazine, there is an active effort to preserve the tunnels. It will have to be a monumental push, as there are multiple organizations, businesses, and government agencies that have a stake in the Tunnels’ welfare and use. However, there is still hope that in the future there will be preservation enacted. Hopefully, this will come in the form of regulated public access that is protects the history while allowing everyone who is interested to learn and enjoy from the infrastructure around them.

This is the resolution I hope for and support. The Donner Train tunnels are amazing, and they are they surrounded by a natural beauty that is both unique and astonishing. It would be a shame if they were boarded over by a private rail company and left to rot on the side of the mountain.