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Old flume trail7/1/2023 The company also improved the flume's design. The company continued operations at the Sheep Creek camp, extending the flume from its lower end, where it had emptied into the Tongue, further northeast and downstream through the Tongue River Canyon about five more miles to where the river became more level. McShane and Company bought out Starbird and Hall. 10, 1893, and emptying into the Tongue River, was four and one-third miles long. The Sheep Creek flume, completed on Sept. Then the water was shut off while the next section was built. When one section of the flume was finished, lumber for the next was floated down to the end. The flume, constructed of 2-inch, tongue-and-groove boards to minimize leaking, was built in stages. The first workers' camp, for both tie cutters and flume builders, was located at the head of Sheep Creek Canyon, which drains into the Tongue River approximately 13 miles southwest of Ranchester, Wyo. Both the flume and the ties were made of pine, an abundant resource in the Bighorn Mountains. They decided to build a flume-a wooden trough many miles long, on trestles when necessary, sometimes anchored to granite cliffs with iron bolts, which would carry a volume of water at a steady grade and with it, the ties. However, the best trees for tie cutting grew high in the mountains, far from the railroad, and Starbird and Hall needed an efficient means of transport down the mountain. Hall, had contracted with the B & M to supply 1.6 million ties. By March 1893, two Omaha men, Dan Starbird and Thomas B. The Rockwood camp was part of an operation begun in 1893 when the Burlington and Missouri Railroad was building its line from Sheridan, Wyo., north to Montana. McShane and Company, which had built the camp more than four years earlier, in spring 1895. Most of the buildings, plus thousands of ties at the Rockwood camp burned, leaving only two cabins and a schoolhouse to J.H. Miraculously, no one from the camp was hurt, though one man later died from pneumonia from standing in the pond to escape the fire. 1910, boasted a sawmill, cabins, bunkhouses, a cookhouse, barn and blacksmith's forge. The tie camp of Woodrock in the Bighorn Mountains, ca. It was a hazardous journey: In some places, the flume hung 300 feet above the bottom of the canyon, and burning debris had fallen on the footboard, destroying a short section of it. While the women and children fled, the men stayed behind to throw personal belongings into a nearby pond behind an earthen dam built as a holding place for the ties on the north fork of the Tongue.Ībout 25 women and children walked down the mountain on a footboard attached to a wooden flume, or waterway, built to float ties down the canyon to their final destination at Ranchester, Wyo., about 20 miles away. The fast-moving fire threatened the railroad tie-cutting camp at Rockwood at the head of the Tongue River Box Canyon. Bring water.High in the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming, flames crackled through the forest in the dry August heat of 1899. We are not young, nor heavy-duty hikers, so this walk appeals to all ages. You can retrace your route, or exit the trail through the neighborhood, down a flight of stairs to overlook a local cemetery. 6 mile long, it's the most scenic little trail we've ever done. Sheltered from the wind, we have often spotted bald eagles (high in the tree tops) and lingered at the waterfalls. This trail is a wooden walkway built over the water flumes which channel water from the mountains to the city. You'll be on Basin Street just a short few minutes before spotting the little sign "Flume Trail" low on the left, before the bridge. Nicholas Orthodox Church, go around it to follow the signs to the Gold Coast trailhead on paved Basin Street. When you spot picturesque blue-and-white St. Franklin becomes an uphill residential street. Get to the Juneau's hiking area by taking a left from the cruise ship dock onto Franklin Street, past the downtown hustle and bustle of shops, a bit over half a mile. Then come back to enjoy this little gem for dessert. If you want a longer hike, by all means first do the challenging Perseverance Trail up and into those magnificent views of the mountains and waterfalls. It's easy to overlook it since it is just off Basin Road, where many others are headed to the Perseverance Valley. Whenever our cruise ship docks in Juneau, we head out for this heavily wooded and shaded little trail.
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