It's in the fall when the weeds dry up and leaves fall from the trees that the true nature of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail in western Washington reveals itself as an old railroad route.
The trail runs some 100 miles from near North Bend to the Columbia River. It slices through the deep evergreen woods of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, but grasses, weeds, shrubs and deciduous trees grow along the abandoned right-of-way.
When those leaves fall and the weeds die off, remnants of the old railroad days are easier to see.
In search of some fall foliage color, I rode my mountain bike up the trail earlier this week. What struck me, however, were the piles of railroad ties and rails, concrete bases for semaphore signals, and derelict telegraph poles that I hadn't noticed before.
East of the Garcia Road crossing, about 7 miles from Cedar Falls, state parks crews are grading the trail. All the scrapping has unearthed the occasional railroad spike lying on the trail, right where the rails ripped up from the old Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad.
One of these fall or winter visits, I'm planning to check around the old station sites — such as Bandera, Rockdale or Garcia — to see if anything is left behind from the railroad days. The Ragnar station site is currently used as a maintenance yard for the trail and still has piles of leftover railroad equipment.
For a video and more photos over the past few years check out Iron Horse State Park's John Wayne Pioneer Trail at my blog. Also check Rails to Trails Conservancy for more information and recent reviews that tell about trail conditions since the tunnel closure. Also, see State closes all five Iron Horse Park trail tunnels indefinitely.
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