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These pictures were taken before the Cleveland Fire in
1992. Erosion since has removed many parts. The trail is
substantially built, and runs from where the Ogilby
(Oglesby) Grade toll road (1860-64) crosses Fry Creek up to
the Counties road (1858). I do not know the history of the
trail, but have conjectured that it was built by Ogilby to
bring supplies down for the building of his road, and in
particular, the place nearby where his bridge
crossed the South Fork just below Fry and Alder Creeks.
The trail is shown (yellow highlight) on this 1916 map of
the Eldorado National Forest running up to the "old County
Road."
A later use of the Ogilby South Fork bridge site occurred
nearly in the 1930s, when PG&E installed a temporary
bridge to use the road from Alder Creek to above Whitehall
for making improvements in "The Ditch"--the Eldorado
Canal.
I also recall a temporary low level log bridge put in in the
1950s for a lumbering operation. Logs were then skidded up
the riverbed to the Alder Creek Campground for loading on
trucks. Made a terrible mess of the river!
The water pipe carried water from a small dam to a
tank which supplied a house built along the old road.


The Lake Tahoe Wagon road later followed this part of the
Ogilby Grade Road, as did Highway 50 even later. The stone
arch culvert at Fry Creek is rapidly disappearing with each
freshet. The lower abutment (if gravity can be called that)
sits on the face of a sloping granite monolith. The upper
abutment is worse, as it is a lot of fill piled on the same
monolith. It must have needed replacing every few
seasons.
more
old roads
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