Eel River

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Eel River Canyon

One of the biggest challenges of building a railroad from Willits to Eureka is the Eel River Canyon. And the Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP) definitely had their hands full with this engineering challenge.

Parts of the NWP mainline is still in use as the Skunk Train pulled onto the mainline at the Willits Depot. Unfortunately the Skunk is heading in the opposite direction of Eel River Canyon. (For very good reasons).

13 miles north of Willits the Northwestern Pacific (NWP) line crosses Highway 101 and begins to parallel Outlet Creek.

The rusted rails of the NWP heading north towards Eel River Canyon.

Just north of Willits I turned left onto Highway 162 (Covelo Road). I wanted to follow the railroad as far north up the Eel River Canyon that I could. I figured I would get as far as Dos Rios before I ran out of road.

There were some key sites in the Eel River Canyon that I wanted to see: Cain Rock and Island Mountain but these were so far off Highway 101 on long and windy roads (some on private roads that seemed very inaccessible). I wanted to avoid trespassing in Mendocino or Humboldt Counties! (Think shotgun!)

One of my sketching destinations was the train trestle over Outlet Creek near the confluence of the creek with the Eel River.

I pulled over just as I crossed the Eel River and set up my sketching chair to add the trestle in my Beta panoramic book (featured sketch). The field sketch is on the left side and as the pictures moves to the right, the color turns to sepia and a steam locomotive pulling a passenger consist, is heading down canyon towards the trestle. The spread is a look back in time.

After the sketch I continued to follow the line towards Dos Rios on Highway 162. I came upon a tunnel, NWP Tunnel 14.

Tunnel 14 in the Eel River Canyon.
This photo shows one of the problems with keeping the line open, both then and now. Here a landslide has covered a large section of the track. Think how expensive it would be to stabilize the hillside and reopen the line. This is one of many slides along the canyon.