This year the Trikes have been neglected. Our longest ride has been 4 miles although we have had several of these. We had heard of the Hiawatha Rail to Trail when it was just stating in 1998. It had been in the bottom of my bucket list but it was so much out of the way. Judy’s plan to tour through the Rocky Mountain states is the perfect opportunity. We stayed in a nice campground in St. Regis, and this morning drove the Sprinter to the East Portal of the St Paul Pass, 1.66 mile long, “Taft Tunnel” under the Idaho-Montana border.

We unloaded our Cat Trikes and set them up. I worried for a couple miles because one of Judy’s tires was flat. I had prepped the bikes just the night before by pumping all 6 tires to the recommended 65 psi, and I was expecting them to stay that way. Anyway we pumped up the tire and watched it closely as we drifted over to the registration table. There was perhaps fifty younger people “milling about smartly” at the trail head. They were dressed similarly and each had an identical back pack. All they lacked were pinned on numbers. I am thinking to myself, “Is this what the ride is like? do they accumulate fifty or so riders and have them ride as a group tour?”

Whew! It was indeed a tour group, but they took off as a slug of riders, and we never heard or saw them until the last couple miles of our ride. They were on the return, up hill ride. We had bought tickets on the “Return Shuttle.” The “_C_OOL BUS.” The driver “Mat” provided some historical commentary and some old tired jokes over a PA system. One interesting bit of information highlighted a certain camper who camped just off the mountain road leading to the trail head. We ourselves had seen his sign by the road announcing “Nude Beach” in big, bold, red letters. We too had craned to see if there was evidence of a small creek behind his camp, for this was a rather dry part of the forest. Mat told us this fellow had hit on this idea a couple years ago to slow traffic near his camp and reduce the dust. (Rim shot, thump…)

The trail ride and shuttle cost us $20 each. We got on our sweat shirts. Strapped lights on our helmets and fired up our red and white flashers and each had a hand held flashlight. We were prepared! We started into the 1.66 mile tunnel, stripped off our sunglasses and couldn’t see a thing. Judy’s flashlight was marginal, but mine would only light up the reflective tape on Judy’s pannier ahead of me. My helmet LED light was totally useless. We slowed to a crawl, we can do that on trikes. A small group of riders with blazing lights overtook us and went on. We charged in behind them and sucked-wheel the rest of the way through the tunnel.

We worked or way down the gentle 1.6% grade through the ten tunnels and across the seven trestles. We ate lunch in the mine siding, Adair, and I got a very cute picture of a chipmunk eating a blueberry he had begged from me. I told myself, “at least it resembles the kind of food he would scrounge up himself.” But, clearly this clever troop of chipmunks were masters of the food begging art. The other wildlife we ran across was a doe, mule deer. She could care less that a funny looking critter on three wheels was snapping photos of her.

The trail itself is compacted gravel. The trestles in fact have a concrete pan atop the steel framework that is filled with gravel. The ties and rails were laid on the gravel. The gravel absorbed the pounding from the wheels and saved the stress on the framework. Toward the end of the ride the trail had developed a significant washboard and some rutting. It was a rough ride, and we were ready to be done.

At the West End Trail Head we met with the shuttle bus driver. We cued up for the next shuttle bus. I expected to have to fold the trikes for transport. I was assured that they would get them in the bus as they were. We missed the first bus, but about 20 minutes later we were first on the next bus with Mat our driver.

I will close with a recommendation: If you have a mountain bike or Trail Trike or even a BMX with fat tires, consider making your way to Lookout Pass between Idaho and Montana on I-90 and take a ride on the Hiawatha Trail.