High Contrast Black and White Image Inside the Donner Train Tunnels

For years I have driven up to Lake Tahoe with my family and I always marveled at the covered train tunnels cutting a swath through the mountains. I wondered what it must be like up there and who built it. What were the conditions surrounding their construction and how much dynamite did it take to carve them out of the mountain?

One day, I chanced across a YouTube video of a photography who had taken a trip up the the now abandoned tunnels and my interest was piqued. I knew I had to go.

One fine July day in 2021, my wife and youngest daughter piled into the car and headed up to Donner Lake where the entrance to the tunnels were located. In the video, the photographer and his girlfriend and had parked and hiked up a hill to reach the tunnels. Where we ended up parking was level with one of the entrances, so I thought I was in the wrong place.

We left our car in a dirt lot amongst other cars there for the same purpose and headed toward the entrance to the tunnel. It’s just a large tunnel bored out of solid rock. As you approach the giant hole, the musty smell wafts out and envelopes you. In the distance is a small white hole, which is the other side of the tunnel. However, in between is just pitch blackness.

As we entered, I took out my camera and held it in my right hand while turning on the flashlight of my iPhone and holding that in my left. The ground was slick with water and rock and it was slow going. Farther up ahead you could see silhouettes of people as they exited the tunnel. That visual cue would end up being the inspiration for the picture above.

As we got deeper and deeper into the tunnel, the weak flashlight from the iPhone became less and less effective. If I had turned off the light, I wouldn’t be able to see my hand in front of my face. The temperature dropped steadily the farther we ventured. It was mid-July outside, but inside the tunnels it was cold enough to wear a sweatshirt.

At this point, I attempted some shots of silhouettes of figures farther down the tunnel, but they were too far away to be any good. A couple approached at one point using a strong flashlight and I took some shots of them. The pictures ended up being pretty cool, and ghostly looking, but it was still hard to see exactly what was happening in the picture without any context. I knew I hadn’t got my shot yet.

The First Tunnel was a bust, perhaps the next one will be better?

Upon exiting that first tunnel, we came into the open air where there was a break between tunnels. It was at this spot that I recognized the road below and the hill the photographer and his girlfriend had hiked up.

We headed into the next, and much longer tunnel. However, along the way there were side exits that you could go and look out and see wonderful views of Donner Lake. At one point, there was a subtle cacophony of squealing and we realized that we were hearing bats up in the darkened ceiling out of eyesight. Creepy. Where was Bruce Wayne when you needed him?

I attempted many types of shots using various natural light sources but nothing really felt right enough. Eventually, we turned around and headed back toward where we parked the car. I was feeling dejected and unsatisfied.

Never put your camera away too early

The groups of people had thinned by the time we entered the original tunnel. I held my camera by my side but I honestly didn’t think I was going to use it again. I didn’t even bother to turn on my iPhone flashlight. I figured we’d been through already and I’d be able to wing it going back. That quickly changed after I stumbled and almost tripped over a rock.

I swung the iPhone flashlight back and forth as I walked with my head down. As we approached the last quarter of the tunnel, there was enough light to turn off my phone flashlight. I swung my camera back around so that I could put my camera away when up ahead I saw my wife and daughter holding hands as they walked.

They were perfectly silhouetted against the bright light of the exit. I quickly knelt down for a better composition, fiddled with some settings—to be honest, it was so dark I wasn’t sure I had made the proper adjustments until I looked through the viewfinder—and fired away. My heart raced as I adjusted the camera left and right and then stood up and knelt back down. I wanted to cover as many views as possible.

Excited, I raced ahead to show my subjects what I had captured. They seemed impressed in that wife and daughter of a photographer kind of way. In other words, sincerity mixed with a dash of patronization. I didn’t mind though. I had fulfilled one of my bucket lists. I had come up to the Donner train tunnels and captured a memory I will never forget.