Vacations Blog

Easy riding on the Hiawatha Bike Trail

First thing they do each morning is clear out the bears.

Because you really don’t want to meet a bear while you’re biking through one of the dark mountain tunnels of the Hiawatha Bike Trail in North Idaho.

The Hiawatha is the ultimate family bike trail in the United States.  According to me, anyway.  The trail winds along 17 miles of abandoned railbed, through nine tunnels, across seven high trestles, and among some of the most stunning mountain scenery you can imagine.

One of many tunnels on the Hiawatha Bike Trail

You start your adventure about two miles off Interstate 90, right across the Idaho-Montana border.  After parking your car and paying a trail use fee, you’re immediately faced with a black hole in the side of the mountain.  It’s the 1.7-mile Taft Tunnel, the longest and darkest of the many tunnels you’ll experience on the trail.

This is where you’d better have some good flashlights strapped to your bike.  We rode through the Taft Tunnel with one good light and several weak ones.  My son took the strong light and the lead, and we followed a tiny flashing red light clipped to his backpack.  It didn’t take long for me to start hallucinating as I followed that bouncing little light into the pitch black.  In the cool, quiet center of the mountain, you start to feel like you’re cycling off into space.  And you miss the spot, about halfway through, when you cross from Montana into Idaho.

Eventually, as the tunnel curves, you see a little white dot of sunlight on the other side, and you exit the tunnel to find a lovely little waterfall and creek.  Here’s where the scenery begins as you start your descent of 1000 feet over the course of 15 more miles on a compact dirt and gravel trail.  With a 2% grade, it’s an easy ride for everyone, regardless of experience and skill.  My son easily did it at the age of 7.

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