Truckee: Airport Lunch and Donner Pass

This is another post in the series about our visit to see our friends Kelley and Mark in Truckee, CA. On Monday, I planned to take Ann to see the historical sites at Donner Pass/Summit and on Sunday night, Kelley generously offered to chauffer us and give us the tour. We planned to meet at her house in Truckee around 11-11:15, the thought being that Mark might accompany us up on the mountain before his shift at the restaurant.

When we arrived, Mark had his truck jacked up and was changing out the brake pads and rotors. Sadly, a stripped thread in a caliper was causing him agita and he went off to the auto parts store to try to find a tap to ream out the threads or, barring that, a new caliper. He returned with neither, the parts unavailable in the very small town of Truckee. If he had found what he needed, it would have been a quick job to ream the threads or replace the caliper, but it seemed it would take longer.

So we decided that just the three of us would take our car and get on our way, leaving Kelley's car for Mark to use for work on the chance he couldn't button up his truck in time. I headed off west towards the Sierra on Donner Pass Road, the old US 40 that was the primary route in the era before the interstate I-80 was put through. We intended to stop along the way at the Donner Lake Kitchen, a rustic restaurant, for a late breakfast, early lunch.

As we passed the memorial to the Donner Party at Donner Memorial State Park at the east end of Donner Lake, the area where the members of that ill-fated party overwintered because the snows rendered the mountains impassable, we all remarked at the gray skies and whitecaps on the lake. We had already discussed going out on Lake Tahoe for a cruise on Tuesday, and the skies and wind did not bode well for our plans.

Arriving just moments later at Donner Lake Kitchen, I pulled into the empty parking lot to find the restaurant which is ordinarily open on Mondays inexplicably closed. Bummer! Plan B was necessary and we reversed course, getting up on I-80 to bypass Truckee before exiting south to the Truckee Tahoe Airport. Yep, the airport, the site of food truck turned brick and mortar Red Truck Café, a really eclectic counter service restaurant.

We all ordered different dishes at the counter and found a table outside beside the tarmac. Soon enough, Mark showed up, his truck finally put back together; he would accompany us to Donner Pass after all. Apparently, he never passes up the opportunity to sample cookies at Red Truck and accordingly, he ordered several giant ones for us to share. Our food was delivered fairly quickly and we found it delicious. In fact, Ann and I were still talking about how good our lunch was later on that day. 

Lunch Adjacent to the Airport Tarmac

Red Truck Café: Lamb Gyros on Really Interesting Flatbread

Retracing our route back to Truckee and then out Donner Pass Road up into the hills, we quickly found ourselves pulling to the side of the road at McGlashan Point just shy of the Donner Summit Bridge aka the Rainbow Bridge. Mark led us across the road and then across a tiny outflow stream from a small pond up onto an acre or so large granite bench, the site of a couple hundred faint petroglyphs that are dated from 1500 to 4000 years old.

These petroglyphs must have been exceptionally meaningful to their carvers, even though we do not know what they mean, for the simple fact that it takes a lot of effort to chisel anything into tough granite using another rock. There are geometric figures, concentric circles, a sun, a bear track, and wavy lines that could indicate rivers or trails. Who knows? I was fascinated; I believe, but am not sure, that these may be the first petroglyphs I have ever seen.

From the petroglyph site, we continued on up the hill towards Donner Summit to the abandoned railroad bed that we could see from below. The walls and tunnels were built, probably under horrific conditions, by Chinese laborers on behalf of the Central Pacific RR, the Union Pacific RR of today. By 1866, over 12,000 Chinese were working to connect the CPRR to the UPRR, which as we all know from grade school history class, happened in Promontory UT in 1869.

The beautiful stone wall in the photos below, now called the China Wall, between tunnels 7 and 8, stands today in testament to the hard work of the Chinese laborers and the abysmal conditions that they had to endure in a country in which they were not really wanted.

Uphill from Petroglyphs; Under Donner Summit
Abandoned Snow Shed entering Railroad Tunnel #8

Donner Lake from Just Below the China Wall

The China Wall

More China Wall Detail, Stone Almost Certainly from Blasting Tunnels

Up on the old railroad bed, as we investigated the tracks atop the China Wall between tunnels 7 and 8, we found a fair amount of flowers still in bloom, especially penstemons, both Newberry's aka Mountain Pride (P. newberryi) and Royal (P. speciosus). For what it is worth, our Royal Penstemons in Bend stopped blooming in late July.

From that vantage point up on the bed for the former CPRR tracks, we also had wonderful views of abandoned roadbed of the old Lincoln Highway (US 40 predecessor), of the Rainbow Bridge, of US 40 switchbacking up the hill, and of Donner Lake down below.

Donner Summit Bridge aka the Rainbow Bridge

Western Snakeroot, Ageratina occidentalis

Mountain Pride, Penstemon newberryi

White Sweetclover, Melilotus albus

Fall Color from Skunk Currant, Ribes glandulosum

On Top of China Wall, Tunnel 8 Entrance

Leachate Designs on Snow Shed Roof, Tunnel #8

Tunnel #8 Interior,  A Reminder of the
Mind Boggling Effort it Took to Mine 14" a Day

Homage to Chinese Laborers in Graffiti

Looking Through Snow Shed to Entrance of Tunnel #7

Tunnel #7 Interior

Jack-o'-lanterns in Tunnel #7

US 40 and Rainbow Bridge From Tunnel #7

8-Inch High Prostrate Krumholz Tree Growing in Solid Granite
a Lodgepole Pine, Pinus contorta

After we made our way back down from the railroad tunnels, we moved slightly up the highway to the Donner Lake overlook at the downhill side of the Rainbow Bridge, which we also walked across. At the overlook, I got the chance to get out on the granite a bit and see that it is not all uniformly salt and pepper speckled, but that there are many sections with inclusions and other interesting features.

Jeffrey Pine, Pinus jeffreyi, Growing in Sierra Nevada Granite

Aplite Dike in Granite

Xenoliths ("Foreign Stones") in Granite

Mark had a few minutes left before he had to go back down into Truckee to get ready for work, so he drove us all up into the pass where the PCT crosses the highway. We turned off just after this and circled around Lake Mary to see the Donner Ski Ranch, then wound down into the famous Sugar Bowl Resort, which at this time of year is naturally empty with a lot of snow removal and snow grooming equipment staged in the parking lot. We backtracked out of the resort to the gondola parking lot on the highway opposite the ski area where we could see the entire resort and all its peaks, Judah, Lincoln, Disney (Walt was an early investor in the resort), and Crow's Nest.

On his way back into town, Mark dropped us at Kelley's truck back down at McGlashan Point and she continued our tour. We headed back up into the pass going east on US 40 to the town of Soda Springs where we turned south and drove around Serene Lakes, taking in all the money that has been invested in vast houses around those two lakes.

We backtracked to Soda Springs where we headed back into Truckee on I-80. Kelley would run us back to the rental and show us around Tahoe Donner before dinner, but that's a tale for the next post.