Biking the Route of the Hiawatha

At the suggestion of our friends Lynn and Glenn, we are in St. Regis, Montana for a week, primarily to ride this well known and loved 15 mile bike trail through the forests and hills of Idaho and Montana.  We are staying at a great campground, the Nugget RV Park, which I highly recommend.  Aside from very nice facilities it has acres and acres of wooded and well groomed hiking trails perfect for pet walking and wildlife viewing (many deer, turkeys and a fox so far).

Me at the start of the trail

The Route of the Hiawatha was originally the Pacific extension of the Milwaukee Railroad. It took almost 9,000 men (mostly immigrants), $234 million and three years to build this challenging section of the railroad. It is now named after its last train, the Hiawatha Olympian, which ran for only only a short time before the railroad line went bankrupt.

Map from Official Route of the Hiawatha website

The trial is now jointly owned and managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Lookout Pass Ski Area, which is located on the state line between Montana and Idaho right off I-90 Exit 0.  

Lookout Pass Ski Lodge

The line for tickets

Parking lot at Lookout Pass and view into Idaho

The Trail can be accessed in several ways at multiple locations, but the easiest and most popular is to purchase trail and shuttle passes at Lookout Pass, rent bikes there if needed, and then drive to I-90 Exit 5 (Montana) and a few more miles on a dirt road, park, and enter the trail there at the East Portal. That's what Rick, our friend Kate and I opted to do.

Parking and unloading at East Portal

East Portal, where trail-masters check your passes and ensure you are safely equipped
for the ride with helmets, water and strong head or handlebar lights.

The very first feature that we encountered, after the trail-master's tent, is a 1.7 mile dark tunnel, with water running down the walls, dripping from the ceiling and into gutters on each side.  It was one of eeriest multi-sensory experiences I have ever had. There is no sound but the distance distorted echoes of other riders and running water. There is no wind, and the air is thick with moisture to the point of being like fog reflecting light from your head lamp, which is the only thing you see except for an occasional reflector and glimpses of the stone walls. It smells rich, deep, wet and earthy. And it's a chilling 45 degrees Fahrenheit.  The road surface is graded toward the edges so that the water runs into the gutters, but that also means its a little tricky to stay straight on course. The dark doesn't help one's sense of balance either. And it seems to go on forever. I got the strong feeling I had been transported to someplace in Middle Earth. 

But eventually we did see the light at the end of the tunnel and broke out into the heat of the day and fresh air. We were greeted by a sweet water fall right next to the trail. It's important to stop and turn off all your lights so that you still have enough battery power for the ride back. 

There are more tunnels, but none as long as the first... 

...and seven trestles of various lengths and heights. 

View from one of the trestles

The surface of the trail starts smooth, but it gets increasingly rocky and bumpy. We were all feeling it through our bike seats by the end of the trail. My super duper Specialized bike with full suspension (front and back shocks) was a real bottom saver. 

Smoke from fires in Idaho made the views a little less spectacular than they might have been on a clear day, but it was still beautiful and completely undisturbed by anything but the trail, trestles and tunnels. There are informational plaques interspersed along the trail that gave us an excuse to stop and stretch our legs.

It took us over three hours and it would have been good to have more snacks with us. After the fifteen miles, a shuttle picks everyone and their bikes up at the Pearson stop and returns to the end of the long tunnel for the last stretch.  The chill of the tunnel felt great at that point.

By the time we got to the truck we were hungry. It turned out to be a longer day than we expected. We returned Kate's rented bike to the lodge and hoped to get a meal there, but were sorely disappointed by the service (one woman to cook, serve and run the register, with many people waiting), so we headed home. 

Things to know if you want to ride the Route of the Hiawatha:

1. This is a great adventure for almost anyone who can ride a bike. We saw families with children, folks riding recumbent bikes, and rough and ready mountain bikers. It's downhill all the way so no hard peddling is required. It just takes people different amounts of time to do the trail, and the last shuttle is often at 4:15, with no other option for return but to ride the whole trail back again.

2. No pets are allowed on the trail.

3. Rentals of helmets, lights and various styles of bikes are available at the Lookout Pass Lodge.

4. Bring plenty of food and water, and don't expect much in the way of food service back at the Lookout Pass lodge.  There are a couple of thermos jugs placed along the trail to fill your water bottle, but they could be empty or you could easily miss them. There are also a couple of bathrooms on the trail. Study the map and keep your eye on the mileage markers and tunnel numbers to know how far you've got to go.

5. Those with poor night vision, serious fear of enclosed spaces or heights might want to think twice about riding the trail.

6. The website has plenty of good information, but it's hard to really imagine until you do it. Check it out. 

McCall and Mountain Home, ID

While in McCall we stayed at the McCall RV Resort, one of the G7 RV Resorts.  It's a somewhat large, multi-tiered park, in a nice location just outside of town and along the Payette River. It has a great indoor/outdoor pool and an indoor hot tub, with 6 private spa quality bathrooms/showers. The sites a large and nicely landscaped, with some shaded. We stayed in one of their "quads" which I'd never seen before, where four pull throughs are arranged as the sides of a square, with a green space in the middle. It makes it easy to meet your neighbors, and easy to party together if you are camping with a group. There was a little partying going on in one of the quads near us, complete with ukulele playing and singing! That's a first for us too.

The view from the lower tier of the resort, of the river and the adjacent public park is great.

There is a large wooded and wetland area next to the RV park, perfect for taking walks down to the river. Kona got to swim a couple of times.  I got up early on our last morning there and got these misty pictures of the river.

There's lots of wildlife in the area as well. Twice on the morning that I took these photos, I saw ospreys diving into the water to catch fish. The sound was surprising - like someone throwing a ten pound rock in the water. We saw deer and three resident foxes (often), who the resident people feed (unfortunately).

The Payette River also seems to have a northern branch the feeds into Payette Lake, though I'm not sure that is the correct name for it.  We went kayaking on that river, and in my opinion it is the most perfect kayaking location (for us) that we've been on so far. It has a gentle current, no white water, and meanders through forest, rocky cliffs and wetlands, providing interesting and varied scenery.

 There are several easy places to put in your non-motorized water craft, like this one where we launched our kayaks easily.

The river meanders all the way to the lake, in case you want to paddle there as well. There are several sandy beaches on the river and the lake, so swimming is definitely an option. The water is crystal clear so the bottom is also interesting to see. Supposedly there are salmon, beaver and otters living in the river. 

After we left McCall, we headed south along Rt. 95 to Mountain Home.  The scenery changed dramatically from wooded mountains, to farms, and finally to desert. We are now at the Mountain Home RV Park.  It has the longest sites we've ever seen, and if they just had a pool, we'd give it a perfect 10.  Although it's not the the most scenic area, the park is run so efficiently, and so well taken care of, that it's a pleasure to be here. It's still a work in progress with lots of space to expand. So this is great place to do all of life's normal things that go between adventures: cleaning, reading, planning the itinerary, cooking, laundry, shopping, repairs, watching the US Open and the GOP Primary, and resting, because there isn't a whole lot nearby to visit.  

There is the Bruneau Dunes State Park, about 40 miles south, and we went there this morning for the sunrise. 

 

It's a relatively small dunes area compared to some in the US, but it does claim to have the tallest single dune in the country. It basically has two - a big one and a little one. Here they are:

The dunes are next to a shallow lake, where I saw this heron.

Route 51 crosses the Snake River south of Mountain Home and we saw several flocks of white pelicans in this location that were too far away to photograph well. The Snake River sure does get around. 

Somewhere near here is the Snake River Birds of Prey Conservation Area that we may get to before we leave.  Other than that, we're just chillin'.  This is our last stop in Idaho; we'll be heading to Utah on Sunday.

P.S. No fires near here, though there are several huge ones in Idaho right now.  Sometimes we get the smoke in a hazy, dissipated way. I guess they're having a really hard time containing them. We saw the smoke jumper center, and the planes and helicopters that work out of McCall. Thank goodness we happen to be skirting around the fires.

Hell's Canyon - Lewiston, ID

As I said in my last post, I chose Hell's Gate State Park for its access to Hell's Canyon, the deepest canyon in the US. (Bet you thought the Grand Canyon was. Me too!) There are several companies that offer raft and jet boat tours in or near Lewiston and they all like to say that they're "not all the same." Among the jet boat tours, they all use similar boats, which are aluminum boats that hold as many as 50 people (our trip had about 25), and are powered like jet skis, needing only a 9" draft underneath, to prevent mishaps with the rocks in the Snake River. They differ by how far they go into the canyon, but all are approximately the same length, with full and half-day options. They differ by where they stop for lunch, each contracting with different lodges or restaurants along the river.

We chose Riverquest Excursions and were very happy with them. We chose a half-day trip, which was really a pretty full day. We left at 10:00 am and returned at about 5:00.

We left from the marina right at the state park.

Captain Butch is Coast Guard Licensed and is the owner/operator of the company. He also leases and manages the ranch where we stopped for lunch. More about that soon.

Shortly after we embarked we passed cliffs of what are called basalt columns. Some of them are vertical, like columns, but others are in fan formations, or horizontal. The whole area was volcanic, with evidence of other geological forces, such as water erosion and massive flooding.

After jetting up the river (going south) for awhile we pulled over at the site of these ancient native American petroglyphs and pictographs. (Pictographs have color or paint in them as well as carving.) You can see how some near the top are colored red. The bright spot is a lazer flash light used to help point out figures on the rock. Some are unfortunately obscured by a small bush now.  

A little further on we passed the Earl Ranch (est. 1894), one the of the few working ranches on the river. Many have been started, but few last. This rancher has bought out many neighboring ranches, which seems to be common among those that succeed. This sculpture of a steer was created by the owner. To give you a sense of scale, see the old boat seat down in front of it? 

The water alternates between flat and class I and II rapids in this part of the river. The jet boat, ably navigated by Capt. Butch zipped right over the water.

The banks of the Snake River are typically either white and black rock, or sand. There are lots of really beautiful little sandy beaches along the way, often with kayakers, rafters or jet boater stopped to swim or picnic on them.

We stopped for lunch at Garden Creek, an old farm leased by Captain Butch and Riverquest Excursions from the Nature Conservancy. It is a cool and lush oasis surrounded by desert. We sat in the orchard and ate our provided box lunches. 

After lunch I strolled around the farm and visited with the resident wild turkeys

and deer who were enjoying the grass and the dropped apples.

Right outside of the orchard, you step into the desert.

The walkway to the farmhouse had an arched gate with this typical Western decor.

After lunch we took a quick dip in the very cold and fast moving river. It sure felt good to cool off. It was probably about 100 degrees in the sun.  We continued south, up the river, passing more scenery along the same themes of dry, striated rocky canyon walls, 

and this rough rock along the water. The white rock marks the typical high water mark, and the shiny black rock above it has been scoured by sand and debris from fast moving high water. 

We made one more stop before we reached the end of our journey up the river.  Unfortunately I can't recall the name of it, but it was part of the national forest system, an old farm, with an orchard and turkeys. This one also had a small historical and natural museum of the area.  Next to the house was this old root cellar/cool storage area, shown here inside and out. 

It's no longer in use. In fact the couple that was volunteering there for the month as caretakers were really struggling with the heat and with not having fresh water. Our captain dropped off several large jugs of drinking water for them. They are really isolated except for the tour boats that come by.

The view from the picnic area shows again the contrast between the oases that have some water source and dryness of the surrounding area. 

Back in the boat and on to our final destination, a place called Dug Bar.  All along the way our captain told us stories about the history of the river and the canyon, complete with gold miners, steam paddle boats wrecks, Native Americans pre and post encounters with white folks, and more. 

Once we started back down the river, or north, the going got a little rougher and the boat had to go faster to avoid getting caught up in the current in a dangerous way. We really whipped around some of the bends in the river and to avoid large rocks. 

Whoa!!!

This view is looking through one of the narrowest places in the river. 

About half way back, we were all pretty hot, so our captain was kind enough to stop at this waterfall and let us stand underneath it if we wanted to cool off.  

Of course we couldn't pass up an opportunity like that, and it was COLD!

Almost home, and we spotted our second group of longhorned sheep.  Both times they were right on the banks of the river, heading down to get a drink. This group were all ewes and kids of various ages who had to cross a large split in the rock to get to the water.  

This one had just successfully jumped across and was looking back at another, saying 

"Mind the gap!"

The next one was hesitant and decided to find another way down.

And this little guy jumped right across, following his mom.

This kid took his time down by the water. It was a thirsty day for all of us.

We were sure ready to be home by 5:00. I can't imagine what a "full" day would have been like. 

Thanks Captain Butch!