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Roaring Camp’s New No. 14

From my redwood cabin deck I love to hear the steam whistle from the No. 1 Shay “Dixiana” echoing down the San Lorenzo Valley from Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad in Felton.

I will be hearing a new whistle coming down the valley in the near (or not so near) future.

On August 9, 2026, Westside Lumber Co. No. 14 was delivered to Felton.

No. 14 is a three tuck Shay built by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio in 1916. Shays are geared locomotives designed to tackle steep grades (up to 9%) on lumber railroads. What they lack in speed they have in power and torque in spades. Between 1880 and 1944, Lima built 2,770 Shays.

No. 14 was originally built for the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Company. In 1937 the company went bankrupt and the Shay made its way to the Westside Lumber Company in 1939. The locomotive was in service there until the mill shut down in 1961.

No. 14 moved around to other museums and railroads before finally making her way to Roaring Camp.

No. 14’s builder’s plate.

On Saturday morning I headed up to Felton to see the 110 year old new kid on the block.

Roaring Camp and Big Trees was founded by Norman Clark in 1962 as a narrow gauge (36 inches) steam tourist railroad.

The railroad has such a historic collection of geared steam logging locomotives that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated three of the railroad’s locomotives as Historic Mechanical Landmark #134 in 1988.

The historic landmark marker on the depot.
Two of Roaring Camp’s Mechanical Landmarks: Shay No. 1 “Dixiana” and Heisler No. 2 “Tuolumne” steamed up and getting ready for the day at the locomotive shed.

I walked around the shops and No. 14 was on a track leading into the locomotive shed. I pulled out my sketchbook and started a continuous-line sketch of the newly acquired three truck Shay (featured sketch).

On the right is the No. 2 Heisler under steam waiting to pull out and connect with her five car consist. On the left, No. 14 can be seen through the shed. The locomotive had arrived just six days before.
The star of the show and the real workhorse of the railroad. The first Shay of Roaring Camp, No. 1 “Dixiana” coupled with her six car consist.
The two railroads in one shot. In the foreground is the steam narrow gauge railroad and in the background is the standard gauge Big Trees & Pacific which runs down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, as well as passing right above my cabin.
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River Muses: Vivid Dancer

On a riverside rock I noticed a black and blue damselfly. I later found out it was a vivid dancer (what a name). The dancer perched horizontally on the rock with wings held parallel to it abdomen, dragonflies hold their wings at a 90 degree angle from their body.

If I thought sparrows (little brown jobs), gulls, and peeps (shorebirds) were hard to identify then putting a species name or even a genus to a dragon or damselfly is supremely daunting!

It felt good to be a novice again.

I started a spread anchored in the bottom left corner by a sketch of the river rocks and the damselfly perched on one of them. The black and blue wonder spent a lot of its time sallying forth and chasing away other damselflies (I assume it was of the same species) like a hummingbird guarding its patch of flowers.

A bit of blue amongst the green.

I traced out the damselfly’s path and its return to the same rock perch.

Through sketching, I learn and on the top of the spread I drew the anatomy of a damselfly.

The eyes of the damselfly are massive in proportion to its body. These aerial hunters have excellent eyesight.

Now if I could only identify the large black and yellow dragonfly cruising above my head. I’m hoping it’s the western river cruiser (Macromia magnifica).

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River Muses: Fluid Poem

Lazy afternoons in August found me sitting in my Crazy Creek chair, feet in the San Lorenzo, sucking on some suds, and reading John D. McDonald’s Cape Fear.

I love being surrounded by nature. It is really a sensory sweater with the sound of the river over rocks just upstream and the rattle of the belted kingfisher. Splashes of color fill my view, the flash of the said kingfisher passing by, inches off the water and the vibrant dragonflies and butterflies patrolling the shore.

And there is a feel of the cool river water running over my feet and the sweeping brush of the crawdad’s antennas followed by an exploratory pinch.

Crayfish investigating my foot. (I’m not dead yet!)

Watching the reflection from f the river play across the far bank inspired me to poetry. I included the poem on the left hand side of the spread.

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Solitario George

One of the stranger sights in the Isla Santa Cruz town of Puerto Ayora is at the Charles Darwin Research Station. It is not one of the many living tortoises living there but a nonliving piece of taxidermy.

There is one tortoise that was a world wide celebrity, his passing was covered around the world. He is an endling, the very last of his subspecies, Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii. His name is Solitario George (Lonesome George).

George was found in 1971 on the small island of Isla Pinta (23 square miles). The island’s vegetation had been decimated by introduced feral goats. He was the last of his subspecies ever found and moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz.

The research station preserves and breeds giants tortoises and works on conservation to protect their habitats around the Galapagos.

A young tortoise breed at the center will one day be released to its home island.

George lived at the center for 40 years, being cared for by Fausto Llerena. Being the last of his kind, he was a popular attraction at the center.

After George was found dead, he was sent to New York to be preserved by the Museum of Natural History.

He was then sent back to Ecuador where there was a fight as to where he would be displayed: Quito or the Galápagos. In the end, the Galápagos won and George is now on Isla Santa Cruz.

George in taxidermy.

Giant Tortoise Sketching

The giant tortoises of Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos, proved to be great subjects to sketch. They are slow moving, ponderous, and often pause for long periods to contemplate the Universe.

These tortoises are also an iconic animal of the Galápagos. A symbol of the Enchanted Isles uniqueness as well as its fragility.

Sometimes coming upon a tortoise and seeing no motion one is inclined to think it is a very lifelike statue, a perfect sketching subject.

This is no statue but a live and wild giant tortoise contemplating the universe!

Our group visited Rancho Primicias, a ranch that is also a giant tortoise reserve.

Giant tortoises spend much time in pools, cooling off and drowning ticks.

While we walked through the ranch on its muddy trails (boots included), I added giant tortoises to my small panoramic sketchbook. Some were wallowing in ponds, contemplating the universe and cooling off.

Giant tortoise sketches.
This is one of my favorite portraits of a tortoise at Rancho Primicias.
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Marine Iguana

“It is a hideous-looking creature, of dirty black colour, stupid and sluggish in its movements”

–Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

While there is much attention and focus on the endemic avian fauna of the Galápagos we should not forget the unique reptiles of the Enchanted Islands.

One of the reptiles that I was really looking forward to seeing was the world’s only aquatic lizard: the marine iguana.

Now this is the iguana that, without fail, features in any nature documentary about the Galápagos.

The marine iguana, as the name implies, is at home to the coastal salt waters of the Pacific. They are only found in the Galápagos Islands.

While I have seen a green iguana in Belize swimming across a stream, its distant relative spends much more time in the tides of the Pacific foraging underwater for sea vegetation.

The large marine iguana statue at Floreana.

We had many encounters with marine iguanas on the different islands that we visited. Like the birds of the Galápagos, they show no fear of humans. Our guide told us to be careful and not step on an iguana. They certainly do not move out of the way when approached.

Marine iguanas spent a lot of time out of the water sunning themselves in between foraging for seaweed.
A loose sketch from one of my photos of a group of iguanas warming up.
The marine iguanas cover the lava. They are cold-blooded and foraging in the cold Humboldt Current of the Galápagos means they need to huddle together to warm up.
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The Vegetarian and the Woodpecker (“Darwin’s” Finches)

And where is the place of understanding?

It is hid from the eyes of all living;

And concealed from the birds of the air.

–Job 28:20-21

The Galápagos is famous for its very drab but diverse (in beak size) finches. They are rather mistakenly called Darwin’s Finches.

Large ground-finch on Genovesa.

In 1835, Darwin famously only spent five weeks in the Galápagos visiting only four of the islands (I visited nine).

“Darwin’s finches” was never a phrase coined by Darwin himself but his writings in the Voyage of the Beagle and Origin of Species really put the Galápagos and it’s finches on the scientific map.

Throughout the islands you will see many statues or paintings of Charles Darwin in many ages of his life. He was in his mid twenties when he visited the Galápagos.

I did a continuous line sketch of one of the statues in San Cristobal with a finch on his shoulder. (The finch was not real but part of the statue.) The statue stands with hand extended as if he is offering to shake your hand. Behind him is a model of the Beagle, looking more like a play structure you might find in a fast food restaurant.

The silly statue of Darwin on San Cristobal with one of his famous finches on his shoulder.
An example of Darwin as an older man at the Charles Darwin Research Station.

In the excellent Pulitzer Prizewinning book The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner, the author tells the story of Peter and Rosemary Grant and the long term study of the finches of a small Galápagos island. Through their multi-decade research (measuring finch beak size) they are able to witness evolution in action.

I was most excited to see this small island that can’t be visited by the general public: Daphne Major. This is where the Grants did their groundbreaking research that changed our understanding of evolution.

For my spread of the finches, I sketched two of my favorites: the vegetarian and the tool using woodpecker finch. Both sketches are based on my photos.

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Espanola Seal Sketching

On a Friday morning we visited one of the most pristine beaches in all the Galapagos: Bahia Gardner.

As our panga arrived, we were greeted by a seal lion in the surf who was between us and our chosen landing site. Here sealions rule the beach!

We walked up the beach and were greeted by the other ambassadors of Bahia Gardener: the Espanola mockingbird.

These mockingbirds aren’t hard to find because they find you. They readily approach beach visitors, inspecting your shoes or sandals. If you set your pack down it will be surrounded by mockingbirds, pecking at pockets and straps.

A mockingbird about to nutmeg Dave.

There were a fair number of Galapagos sea lions hauled out on the beach. Plenty of relatively stable subjects in repose to sketch.

I walked the beach adding sea lions to my spread (featured sketch).

My line work and nature’s work in the background.

Galápagos Top Predator

When you think of apex predators some iconic animals come to mind: Tyrannosaurus rex, African lion, orca, great white shark, polar bear, jaguar, saltwater crocodile, and harpy eagle.

The apex terrestrial predator of the Galápagos is not a mammal or a reptile but a raptor.

This is one of the larger buteo (broad winged) hawks in the world: the aptly named endemic Galápagos hawk.

The hawk is found on most of the major islands and preys on a wide variety of the island’s fauna, from giant centipedes to booby nestlings to marine iguanas.

On our journey around nine of the islands we saw hawks on three: Fernandina, Espanola, and Santa Fe.

In 1835, Darwin notes how tame the local hawks were as he writes in the Voyage of the Beagle:

“Extreme tameness…is common to all the terrestrial species…A gun is here superfluous; for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree.”

We did not get near close enough to knock a hawk out of a tree but we did have some good looks at the Enchanted Island’s top predator.

Our first look was at Punta Espinoza at the northwest tip of Fernandina Island. Our non-birder heart surgeon first spotted a juvenile on a cliff from the panga.

We later encountered the Galápagos’ top predator while looking at waved albatross on Espanola.

On Espanola, we saw an adult soaring on the same updrafts as the albatross.