Early morning (7am!) on a Sunday in the end of September, Katherine and Amelia stopped by Brohaus to pick Shrews (Eric) and me up. We were about to drive over to a McDonalds at the edge of the bay in Fremont to start our hike over to Drawbridge. Drawbridge is a ghost town in the middle of the bay. You read that right, a ghost town in the bay.

After parking near the McDonalds, we hiked a bit over 2.5 miles along a road that crossed the marshes and salt flats of the south bay. The route is pretty safe except for the final stretch. Right before arriving at the town, you have to cross an active railroad bridge (since drawbridge is on an island). It is only about 250 feet long, but we were still cautious while crossing. You can see the route we took highlighted as a red path in the map below. The picture below covers the area outlined in red in the Google map further down the page.

The picture below shows an aerial view of the portion of Drawbridge that we explored. You can clearly see the derelict buildings that look almost littered around the railroad tracks. The area represented in this picture is outlined in blue in the Google map.

On our way to the ghost town:

The terrain of the surrounding areas looked bizarre, almost alien in some areas.

We passed a few catwalks that allowed us a closer look at the odd colored salt.

I really like the color of the lichen on the wooden boards contrasted to the color of the salt.

Pink salt?!

Someone set up target practice near the rail bridge over to Drawbridge.

Finally, my first ghost town!

These bottles are probably not something from the period. I still like them.

An old bedframe:

Some buildings have been reused as canvases.

Some previous visitors wrote out some poetic (and creepy) graffiti.

And some people were a little less creative.

Creepy.

This wiring cannot be to code.

The houses have been sinking into the marsh for at least 30 years. Hence, they look really short.

Lichen on one side of a roof.

An old fridge!

Another bedframe.

Weird chimney thing.

And what looks like a broken part of the chimney. Anyone knows how it works? It looks like a T-junction.

I took this shot with my camera upside down over my shoulder. These kinds of shots are great because the subjects rarely see them coming and don’t have time to pose or smile.

Many houses were almost fully collapsed.

I don’t remember what was so interesting about this house.

One of my favorite shots and my favorite graffiti:

We had to hide from a few trains.

Can you see Shrews in the distance?

We didn’t have enough time to run far away to hide from this train.

We made our own trail through mud and tall grass to get to this water tower only to find an already existing path.

Having a bit of fun before leaving.

One last shot of Drawbridge.

After returning to the car, we headed over to Green Champa Garden for some Thai and Laotian food. The service was great and the food was equally good. So good in fact that I forgot all about my camera until we were completely finished ^^. I had the delicious tofu red curry with pumpkin.

Drawbridge was a great experience. I like seeing nature reclaim what man creates. Drawbridge is proof of the never-ending cycle.

Next time that I go, I think I’ll bring a bike to cut out the long walks to and from the town. I would also like to check out the southern part of the town that we skipped. The buildings there looked like they are in better condition.

If you are interesting in seeing more pictures, check out photos other Flick users have captured.