Mt Pilchuck is a very easy to spot mountain east of Everett, Washington (twenty some miles north of Seattle). This was just after New Year’s Day a couple years ago and shows the low snowpack that year. Normally, this would have been a struggle without snowshoes or cross-country skis … we had our snowshoes with us and we wore them for a while, but mostly because we could and then wouldn’t have to carry them.
Donner Pass is on Interstate 80 between Reno and Sacramento. The impressive rockwork is the old railroad grade, built by Chinese workers with construction finalized in 1868. From the look of the rock in the surroundings, they collected a lot of the rock they used from the wall locally.
This was near the summit of Donner Pass in California. It was built by the railroad workers to get gold across the Sierras to the Sacramento area, and then on to the Bay area.