A Steam Donkey

Last week, my friend and fellow photographer took me out and showed me a 'steam donkey' that he had been told about and then subsequently searched for and found in the woods. As far as we can tell, it was used in the late 1920s, and has been abandoned in the woods to rot along with the gigantic stumps of the trees the loggers cut.

They placed this steam engine on two huge logs for a platform, and then they would use the engine and steel cables to pull the logs they'd cut up the hill to the road.
The two huge logs were used for stability, and they are still bound together with axles.
It is slowly sliding down the hill...

Freckles stands on one of the stabilizing logs, you can see the scale thanks to her... she had a blast running around in the woods.

One of the stabilizing logs has put such steady pressure on this tree that it has flattened out and grown to surround the end of the log.

Another shot that shows the size of this thing...

This plate says "Willamette Iron and Steel Works, Portland Ore." We couldn't find a year on it tho. What a neat sight, it was definitely worth the hike!