Tracks in the Forest

I was traversing across a forested slope New Year Day taking advantage of a spell of good weather working on the holiday but enjoying warm temperatures and no rain or wind. One thing I look for are changes in the slope aspect. A level area or a sudden dip in the slope hints at a deep-seated landslide. And in this case I was working outside any areas that had LiDAR. I had to figure this out without a short cut.

Slope break in the forest

At first I suspected a large slide scarp and looked further down the slope to see if any additional steps or scarps were present. But the feature I was seeing (a bit hard to photograph in the forest and it was subtle) appeared linear. Made me suspect an old road instead. Some past skid road in the forest from previous timber harvest. But then I came across this:

Rail in the woods

This rail line was built in 1900 to get logs out of the valley on the Olympic Peninsula. Not much is left of this old line built for one purpose. Once the available logs were harvested from the valley, the whole thing was left behind and for some reason this rail didn't get removed.