Route of the Hiawatha

August 9, 2017

The Route of the Hiawatha is a rail trail that follows what was the Milwaukee railroad as it made its way through the St. Joe mountains near the Idaho/Montana border. Because it is a truly mountainous area, the rail line required numerous trestles and tunnels. The line was constructed mainly in the 1920's and was abandoned in the 1950's. While the early development, of course, was a tale of struggle and hardship, in the later years here was time for luxury. The Hiawatha was a train on the line featuring luxury accommodation, dining, and a scenic viewing car. The whole Hiawatha experience was carefully designed, and included a new logo, being a stylized "Hiawatha" Indian and arrow. This was chosen because of the lines from the 1855 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem as shown below:

The Hiawatha trail has become big business for the nearby Lookout Pass ski resort, which has scads of bikes, trail a bikes, trailers, and bike racks for rent.They also administer the trail and the shuttle bus that can take you back to the start. The fees for trail and shuttle amounted to $62 for the four of us today.

Rental bikes at the Lookout Pass resort. They had lots more than just these.

We knew from past experience that the parking lot at the top of the trail can really fill up. So we were there at 8, 1/2 hour before anyone showed up to collect our fee. We were the only ones there, but many more arrived soon and by the end of the day, as expected, the place was jammed.

The trail starts off with the pitch black and 45 degree F 3 km long Taft Tunnel. For this you need good lights front and back, and a wind breaker. It is just a little forbidding, but the kids jumped right in. The interior is quite slimy, and there are gutters with running water left and right. The kids were unfazed, and in fact were more interested in the mineral deposits on the walls, which they had learned about in their mine tour.

Cyclists marshalling at the entrance to the Taft Tunnel

Inside the tunnel it truly is completely black.

The route is entirely a wilderness run, surrounded by forested mountains. It is exciting to look at the deep valleys, and to see the long and high trestles. A lot of effort has also been put into trailside signs, describing all aspects of the rail construction, labour force, economics, and rolling stock. There is also coverage of the 1910 fire that burned the entire forest in this area and destroyed much of the town of Wallace.

The beautiful mountains and forest are a big attraction of this trail.

We like the feeling that there is wildlife around.

Whether for adults or children, one of the most entertaining sights was the many bold chipmunks living in the hills. At first we declined to respond to their begging for food, but finally we did give up some carefully chosen granola bar bits. It was amusing to see how if one discovered three morsels, it would quickly jam two away in its cheeks before nibbling on the third. They clearly are not interested in sharing with their chipmunk friends. Naturally we took quite a few photos of these little guys. Here is a selection:

The kids naturally took many chipmunk photos

Of course the essence of even a 30 km ride is getting down to it, with some patient pedalling. Avi and Violet were fine with this, and pedalled along at a good clip with no whining.

Violet heads out bravely on the trail, over a trestle

Dodie and Violet cycled most of the day together.

There were of course some distractions, fun or otherwise. Like crashing in some gravel, or meeting friends.

Violet takes a spill in gravel. Dodie is rushing over to lend a hand, I am taking this photo!

Bob and Judy Barday - the Friday tandem riders - did the Hiawatha today too.

Quite quickly we had arrived at the bottom of the trail. Despite the fact of it having been downhill, the rough surface made the ride quite tiring. We were glad to have the shuttle available.

Dodie's bike gets loaded on the shuttle. Even downhill, this was a tiring 30 km.

Violet wanted to guard our spot for boarding the shuttle.

The kids must not have been totally tired, because we returned to our motel (the Wallace Inn) and put in more hours of vigorous pool splashing. It had been a very full several days. We are really proud of how the kids did, and feel confident in starting to plot their next bike adventure!

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 123 km (76 miles)

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