Exploring the New Palmer area on Larch Mt. - and a podcast.

[Don Nelsen]

I'll be organizing a hike on Larch Mountain soon so I went up there yesterday to do a little more exploring. I haven't been to New Palmer since I upgraded my GPS so this time I was able to better document my old finds and better track any new ones - good thing, too, everything I found was well hidden under tall timber and the old equipment would not have been able to get a good signal.

I've learned a few things over the years, too, so this was a most fruitful trip yeilding lots of new finds in this historic area.

Here's what a RR grade looks like after 75 years abandonment:



Following these grades usually results in interesting finds - Wow! - I wonder what happend here!



Here's a rusted RR spike and a hand forged nail in the remains of a trestle: I found three old trestles on this trip.



North of the site of New Palmer, I found this previously undocumented (at least by me) steam donkey engine skid. This was real monster in its day - over 50 feet long and about 10 feet wide.



Its smokestack nearby: Note my GPS for scale.



Interesting hardware:



Here's all that remains of one of the houses:



This hike started at Larch Mt. Rd. MP 8.5 and covered 15.3 miles. I'll shorten it up a bit and make it a loop when I put out
an invite so stay tuned!

Oh yeah - podcast today at 2pm: http://hikeyeah.com/category/podcasts/

-Don

[pablo]

I'm really enjoying the discussions going on in various threads concerning this area. Thanks to you, Don, and the rest of the PH crew for the history lessons, photos, and maps. Any chance of getting the NG .tpo file for this area from you?

--Paul

[Guy]

I'm really enjoying the discussions going on in various threads concerning this area. Thanks to you, Don, and the rest of the PH crew for the history lessons, photos, and maps.

Same here! I find it all very fascinating.

[BrianEdwards]

Being a railroader, I'm lovin' all the rr history you're uncovering up there Don! Great stuff

[Don Nelsen]

Thanks, gentlemen! I appreciate the input and interest. Pablo, please send a PM with your E-mail address and I will send a .tpo file of Larch Mt. and area - hope we can get together for a hike soon.

Guy and Brian - hope to have you along too when I do a group hike up there. Most interested in meeting you.

-Don

[anna in boots]

Oh yeah - podcast today at 2pm: http://hikeyeah.com/category/podcasts/

-Don

Don, I'm not sure why the podcast hasn't been posted yet to hikeyeah but I left some inquiries and hopefully that will light a few fires. Can't wait to hear your stories! Hopefully, you'll join us at the Meet-n-Deet and share even more.

anna in boots

[Don Nelsen]

Oh yeah - podcast today at 2pm: http://hikeyeah.com/category/podcasts/

-Don

Don, I'm not sure why the podcast hasn't been posted yet to hikeyeah but I left some inquiries and hopefully that will light a few fires. Can't wait to hear your stories! Hopefully, you'll join us at the Meet-n-Deet and share even more.

anna in boots

Hi Anna,

I'll be at the Meet and Deet for sure! I'll bring some maps and my laptop with tempting locales to peruse for hikes in the future.

Don't know why the Podcast isn't up yet but I'm sure Alex will get it done soon. We talked mostly about Larch Mt. but touched on a lot of subjects. BTW, Your podcasts were great, if I haven't said so already!

Don

[hikeyeah]

Oh, the joys of Wordpress. To give anybody who's interested a little more insight into the production side of my podcast, let me use this quick explanation as an apology for not getting my conversation with Don up sooner.

I go to the studio and either do a show live or do a pre-record (in Don's case, the show was a pre-record). Then my producers do a little post-production to make sure the levels are okay (not to edit content) and convert the WAV file into an MP3 file. The producers host the MP3 file online and put a draft post in my blog's Wordpress admin area that includes a link to the file (last week, for those of you who remember, the link was broken; we're definitely not perfect, but at least we fix stuff pretty quickly). Once the recording is all set for people to stream, I edit the post, add information, and, if it was a live show, put it online immediately. When I do pre-records, I generally set the posts to go online on Friday at 3pm, a little after my show airs. In Wordpress, this is called scheduling a post. Unfortunately, I scheduled the post for Don's podcast, but then I didn't convert the status from draft to published, so it was still waiting for me.

Anyway, now the podcast with Don is right here:

http://hikeyeah.com/hike-yeah-podcast-43/

And again, sorry for my screwup.

[anna in boots]

And again, sorry for my screwup.

No worries, Alex, I know what your schedule has been like. Thanks for getting the podcast up and running so we can tease--I mean congratulate--Don on his debut. Good job, Don! Ha, ha!

Anna

[Don Nelsen]

And again, sorry for my screwup.

No worries, Alex, I know what your schedule has been like. Thanks for getting the podcast up and running so we can tease--I mean congratulate--Don on his debut. Good job, Don! Ha, ha!

Anna

Anna, I deserve the teasing and Alex said he would have me back again so you get another chance!

- Don