Wellington Ghost Town, Iron Goat Trail — Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2020

We headed up Highway 2 to Stevens Pass and turned off on Road 6099 for the drive down to the Wellington trailhead of the Iron Goat Trail. This road is on part of the old Great Northern Railway switchback railroad grade that once went over Stevens Pass, and was used from 1893 to 1900. The present day PCT northbound from the pass is on the old GN railroad grade for over a mile. After the third switchback on Road 6099 is a junction with the side road going right down to the Wellington Trailhead parking area. The Forest Service restroom at the parking area is locked. There is one open at Stevens Pass in the parking lot for the southbound PCT trailhead.

We hiked eastbound on the IGT out to the west portal of the "old" 2.5 mile long Cascade Tunnel which was opened in 1900 to replace the switchback tracks over Stevens Pass. Along the way we passed the remains of the coaling tower, single track engine house and water tank foundation. The tunnel is closed and has water running out of it. We then turned around and started our hike on the IGT southwest to Windy Point. A short distance from the parking lot the trail enters the double track cement concrete snowshed built in 1911 after the March 1, 1910 avalanche that killed 96 people ( two trains, one passenger, one mail, plus railroad workers). George first hiked through this snowshed over 40 years ago. The west end of the snowshed has some damage to it. This was from bombing practice during WW2. Fortunately the planes did not bomb the whole snowshed. There are interpretive signs along the way giving the history of the railroad that used this route from 1893 to 1929. The "new" 7.8 mile long Cascade Tunnel under Stevens  Pass was opened on January 12,1929. This is the tunnel still used today by BNSF and Amtrak. After the new tunnel was opened the old route from Scenic to Wellington was no longer needed and became the present day Iron Goat Trail.

Along the way the trail goes by the old cement concrete back walls of the former snowsheds. We came to an open area where we could see up the Surprise Creek drainage and Sparkplug Mtn. Further on the trail enters the conifer forest on the way to Windy Point with more snowshed back walls. When we got to the double track 1,121' long Windy Point tunnel it was about lunch time. There are some rocks to sit on at the east tunnel portal. George and his dad Bill walked through this tunnel back in 1976 while hiking from the Martin Creek end of the railroad grade. This was before the IGT was built and opened in 2000. Nowadays the tunnel is closed for hiking as the cement concrete ceiling is falling down. The trail continues to the Windy Point viewing area along the outside of the tunnel on the cement concrete foundation. After lunch we headed back uphill (it is a 2.2% grade) to Wellington. The trail is all brushed out.

On the way back we met two women hikers heading to Windy Point. It turned out one of them was "Muledeer", another WTA trip reporter. We had a nice long chat with them about our hiking adventures. While we were talking, two low flying Navy jets from the WINAS came zooming over us on their practice flight. We only saw 8 hikers today, so no big crowds like on a lot of other trails.  Makes for a nice history hike. For more info on when trains were running on the Iron Goat Trail see the books, "The Iron Goat Trail, A Guidebook", published by the Mountaineers. For many photos of Wellington and the line down to Scenic which is now the Iron Goat Trail, see "The Great Northern Railway, A Pictorial History", by Charles & Dorothy Wood published by PFM. A good book on the 1910 avalanche is "The White Cascade" by Gary Krist. Hiked 9-29-2020.