Any idea what this is?

[Kurt Maechner]

I took a couple photos of this metal rod near one of the rock palisade retaining walls on the way towards the west portal of Alpine Tunnel.  Anyone have an idea what it might be?


Kurt

[Chris Walker]

Those rods driven into a Drillhole are quite common across the West where major rockwork was done.  

Depending on location, probably as an anchor point for restraining workers, or maybe for a Guywire of a Stiff-leg Derrick or other lifting device used in the positioning of rock. The Alpine Enginehouse construction photos show similar.
 
A number of books have accounts of Railroad construction in Canons and related the use of Men suspended over cliff faces to drill for blasting.

[Don Pacetti]

Could it be a surveyor’s major survey point marker?

[South Park]

  Could be as simple as a down guy anchor for a telegraph pole.  Did the
telegraph line run close by ?

[Chris Walker]

South Park,  
I had thought of that, but have never seen any photos with the line going down alongside the tracks at the Palisades.  I'd be thinking the Telegraph straightlined down off Tunnel Gulch to Woodstock with maybe a branch loop up to Sherrod.

[South Park]

  The most common method of down guy anchoring was a simple rock.  The line
went to Woodstock, but I am unsure of the routing.  It was common for the line
to run along the tracks for emergency train problems, but I am unsure if the South
Park ran it all the way around the Sherrod Loop.  My limited hunting focus in that
area was downgrade from Woodstock, toward Quartz.