Category: Old Railroads

Biking the Milwaukee Road along the St. Joe River

Over the past year I have explored several sections of America’s only abandoned transcontinental railroad. Parts of the Milwaukee Road have been converted in to bike trails, parts have been lost to time and some sections are now public roadways. Forty plus miles of the old railbed between St. Maries and Avery along the St. Joe River in Idaho is the latter. Today I checked out a ten mike stretch between Marble Creek and Calder along with checking out a couple of historic sites.

Before my ride I drove all the way to Avery, 48 miles up the road to visit the old depot in that town.

Next to the historic depot there is a restored railcar from the glory days of the railroads passenger service when the Hiawatha, for which the famous bike trail is named, ran from Chicago to Seattle. This is a lounge car.

From Avery to Marble Creek, the old railbed is now a paved road with a fifty-five mile per hour speed limit, no shoulders and plenty of logging truck traffic. I opted to drive back thirteen miles to the bridge at Marble Creek. A sign let me know that I might not make it to Calder from here.

At Marble Creek a gravel road splits off from the main highway just before the paved road crosses the St. Joe River. From this point the railbed has been turned into a lightly used local road. Pretty much the only development along this ten mile stretch is vacation properties on the river bank and the old railroad is how they are accessed.

At the Goat Rock Cut, I was treated to an exceptional view of the river.

I saw a lot more drift boats floating down the river than I did vehicles on the railbed. This seems to be a very popular stretch of water for fishermen to enjoy this pastime.

Several small bridges crossing small side creeks graced the old railbed. It appeared the wooden structures dated from the days this was an active rail line.

The bridges have been planked to support vehicle traffic but the condition of the surface varied. I walked my bike across a couple of them so as to not taking a chance on bending a rim of hitting a protruding nail.

About four and a half miles in I came across the only tunnel on this stretch of the old railroad. It was short and straight.

The local roadway was surprisingly wide being a former railroad. I’m guessing some sections used to be double tracked.

This is the Big Creek Bridge.

The road surface was okay for fat tired bikes with only a few short sections of loose gravel. That being said it’s still a lot harder pedaling on gravel than it is on pavement.

Seven and a half miles in I came across a construction site. Here is where they’re replacing the Elk Creek Bridge and here is where I turned around. I didn’t see a sign that said bridge closed except for bicycles.

They are a lot of views of the St. Joe River along the road.

The St. Joe River is a popular draw for all kinds of outdoor enthusiast.

I made it back to my car and drove around the detour to Calder, the only town of any kind between Avery and St. Maries. They do have a small store but I found out it is closed on Mondays. Calder is across the river from the main highway and is accessed by it’s own narrow bridge.

I got back on my bike and pedaled west to a closed bridge. The railroad was obviously double tracked here. I have read reviews where the riders have dismounted and carried their bikes across. I did not. The old railbed on the far side was completely weed covered anyway.

Seven miles west of Calder the main road again crossed the St. Joe and so did the old railbed. I had to check out this impressive bridge before calling it a day. I drove a couple of miles east back towards Calder also but the road surface there was extremely rough.

I always wanted to check out this section of the Milwaukee Road on bike but truth be told the view would have been the same from inside my car. I’ve ridden and walked several sections of the Palouse Cascade Trail which is Washington State’s section of the old rail line.

Next time I’ll ride the forest service road from the lower end of the Hiawatha Trail at Pearson to Avery. I did that years ago and remember it as being very scenic.

The Columbia Plateau Trail, Amber Lake and an impressive embankment.

For todays hike, I headed an hour or so through and past Spokane to check out the Columbia Plateau Trail, specifically the section from the Amber Lake trailhead towards the north.

Last year I took a short hike on the Columbia Plateau Trail from the end of the pavement outside of Cheney Washington into the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. At the time I felt like I didn’t have enough photos or information on this trail to make a post. The unpaved part of the trail started at a trailhead off of Cheney Spangle Road.

The first mile of the trail passes through farm and ranch land before crossing under Cheney Plaza Road and entering the wildlife refuge.

Turnbull Wildlife Refuge is about 23,000 acres and covers a portion of the channeled scablands, a geological area in Eastern Washington created by ice age floods that stripped the soil away and left numerous narrow lakes in coulees. The section I hiked passed by several small lakes and through low cuts blasted through the basalt.

In the area excavated I notice this striking radial design around a small hole. Once you see one of these, you can’t un-see them. These were created by blasting the rocks so the basalt could be more easily removed. Once I saw it, I noticed dozens more through out the cuts.

This line, The Spokane Portland and Seattle was built in 1905 and operated for eighty plus years. The 130 miles between Spokane and Pasco are now owned by the State of Washington and maintained as a public trail.

That was last summer. Today I was looking for a place for a winter hike with limited or no snow and open scenery so I could stay in the sunshine, so I decided to check out another section of this trail.

It took me over a hour to drive to the Amber Lake Trailhead. All of the trailheads require the Discover Pass to use so I used mine. In addition to providing access to the trail there is also a place to launch kayaks or canoes on this pretty little lake.

Like most lakes in the Channeled Scablands, Amber Lake is long and narrow and oriented from the northeast to the southwest in the direction the ancient flood waters presumably flowed. Being late January the lake as to be expected was iced over.

Near the northeast end of the lake, the old railroad bed ran through a cut right next to it.

Soil and rock from the cut was used to create an embankment along part of the lake shore.

Beyond Amber Lake the rail bed curved towards another of these cuts through the basalt. Scattered Ponderosa Pines were the dominate tree species along the trail.

That and birch trees. What looked like frost was actually the last of Decembers snow that had not yet melted in the shade of the rock walls.

Around a bend was a tunnel, kind of. This is a recent addition to avoid crossing one of the only paved roadways in the area, Mullinex Road.

Even in a newer and very remote tunnel, the lowlife vandals have been hard at work degrading the experience for everyone. Thanks scumbags! Even though it wasn’t an original railroad tunnel it was still kind of neat to walk through.

Past the tunnel the cuts through the basalt got a little bigger. You have to be impressed with the work it took to make this railroad a hundred and twenty years ago.

This rock wall shows how the cooling lava created basalt columns. A patch of ice at the bottom is a seepage of ground water.

Between the cuts through the basalt the trail passed by numerous small ponds all frozen.

Beyond the trials crossing with Stirling Road the old railbed ran on top of a small embankment between wetlands. This is were I called it good and turned around.

Once back at the parking lot I took a short walk to get a good look at the part of the lake southwest of the trailhead. I decided to make one more detour before I made the drive home.

Just seven miles or so southeast the Columbia Plateau Trail kind of ends at Williams Lake Road just inside Lincoln County. I’ve always found the correlation between trees and the Spokane County line kind of interesting. Spokane County gets drier the further east you head but has Ponderosa Pines right up to the county line. As soon as you cross into Lincoln or Adams counties there are almost no trees.

South of Lake Williams Road the trail reverts to a rough surface of old railroad ballast and isn’t really suitable for even fat tired bikes. In fact its kind of hard to walk on. Only real adventures explore the eighty mile long section from here to Franklin County. Also I understand that several road crossings and high trestle bridges are closed and their are no practical detours around them.

However just across the road from the trailhead there was this epic piece of early twentieth century engineering. This was the largest railroad embankment I’ve ever came across and I couldn’t resist checking it out.

It was well over a mile across a coulee I couldn’t find the name of on this massive earthen berm. It is difficult to impart the scale of this marvel. Quick math gave me a ball park guess that upwards of half a million cubic yards of rock and dirt were used to create it.

Halfway across I could see the barren terraces were I’m guessing all of this fill came from over a hundred and twenty years ago. I’m guessing this embankment was over seventy feet above the coulee floor and tapered from thirty feet wide at the top to well over a hundred feet wide at the bottom.

Looking up the coulee I could see Down Lake with Mica Peak Washington in the far distance almost forty miles away.

After forty five minutes I made it to the other side of the coulee. Now there was nothing left to do but return to the trailhead. The sun was getting pretty low on the horizon and the scablands are lonely country.

I took a last look at this giant causeway and called it a day. I would call both the section of the trail southeast of Amber Lake and the massive embankment hidden gems in the Inland Northwest. It is an epic landscape indeed.

Exploring old abandoned railroads is one of my favorite things to do. This rail trail eventually crosses over the Palouse Cascade Trail anther thirty miles or so to the southwest. I guess I have more places to check out next spring.

The Olympian Trail, from Taft to Saltese and back.

I headed across Lookout Pass into Montana. I wasn’t sure where I was going to bike, but ended up at the East Portal Trailhead, the place 95% of visitors who ride the Hiawatha start their journey. I usually avoid the Hiawatha on summer weekends due to the crowds involved, and with good reason.

This was the sight that greeted me in the parking lot. That sealed the deal. Luckily for me another trail on the same railroad easement heads east from this same trailhead into Montana. I went that way and everyone else went through the tunnel into Idaho.

Immediately I was alone. The trail surface was just about the best and smoothest ride I ever had on an unpaved rail trail. The Olympian is another section of the Milwaukee Railroad, one of five transcontinental railroads and the only one that has been abandoned.

Heading east you are also heading down from the lines high point at the Taft Tunnel. The surface and grade are such that as grown man with fully inflated tires I had to ride the brakes a little. That made it fun going out but there’s always a price to pay on the return.

A mile or two in and I found myself high above Interstate 90. One of the only downsides of this ride is that you can hear the traffic below you for a large part of the trip. In most places the forest is thick enough to conceal the highway and it is so far below the trail as to not be a distraction.

About three miles in while descending using a loop on a side canyon I came across the Dominion Tunnel, the only one on this stretch of the trail. The Hiawatha has several. I only needed one to be happy.

The tunnel was well made and maintained. It had a slight bend but was short enough that there was no need for flash lights.

Immediately after the tunnel is the Dominion Bridge, a high trestle over a creek that rivals any of the bridges on the Hiawatha.

The views were awesome and more importantly I had the view to myself. On the Hiawatha every bridge is a circus on busy weekends with dozens of people jockeying to get that perfect shot of the family. I only had to work around my bike.

I lingered to enjoy the view and solitude. At this point of the trail it sweeps far up the side canyon from the Interstate so there is no traffic noise and all you can see is the wilderness you are traveling through.

Just pass the bridge the trail is gated making this a pedestrian or bicycling only experience. Beyond this point the railroad bed is open for recreational traffic. I had maybe seven side by side ATV’s pass me on the rest of the trip, mostly close to Saltese.

The trail now heads back down the side canyon and within another mile you are again high above Interstate 90. There are nice views of the Bitterroot Mountains along the way.

Just before I made it to Saltese, a tiny Montana town, I came across this sign. I kept riding on the high grade but soon the trail surface became much rougher. It looked like from here on that the railroad was mostly used by ATV’s and dirt bikes.

I ended up walking my bike the last quarter mile or so to the Saltese high bridge which was my goal for todays ride. I didn’t want to take a chance on a bent rim since I needed my bike to carry me back up eight and a half miles to the trailhead.

From the deck of this bridge you could see pretty much all of Saltese. The community does have one of those roadside casinos found through out Montana so I guess you could take the connection to the lower grade to get a cold beverage if you wanted. As you can see in the photo by now the trail isn’t that much higher than the interstate. From what I can tell within a couple of more miles they are at the same level.

This is what the bridge looks like from below. To get to the East Portal Trailhead I had to take a detour through this town due to road construction That added ten miles to the drive but gave me the opportunity to see this bridge from below without having to ride down the side trail.

On the way back up I had more time to appreciate the scenery. Going up hill wasn’t that bad. I just put it in low gear and accepted that I was only going to make single digits as far as my miles per hour.

I didn’t run it a lot in the way of wildlife. Since I was the only cyclist on the trail the entire time I had high hopes for some animal action. I had to settle for a harmless snake.

On the way back I stopped at the Dominion Bridge again and spent a good half hour comptenplating the views. If I had a lawn chair and some cold drinks I would have stayed the rest of the afternoon. It was unbelievable to have this place to myself.

Beyond the bridge and tunnel I could make out the railroad grade across the side canyon I had recently biked up. It was a scaled down version of looking across Loop Creek on the Hiawatha.

Just before I made it back to East Portal and the crowds I had a feeling I was being watched so I stopped and returned the favor.

By the time I made it back to the trailhead for the Hiawatha folks had started parking beyond the lot on both sides of the old easement. It had to be a zoo on the Hiawatha that day. I felt like to smartest person in the room having enjoyed a scenic seventeen mile long bike ride in complete solitude while everyone else had to battle the crowds.

So the Olympian Trail continues down hill another twenty miles or so to St. Regis. I’ve seen parts of it from the Interstate during my travels and it appears to stay down on the valley floor beyond Saltese. I have no idea what the surface and use conflicts are like, but the first eight and a half miles from East Portal are wonderful. It would be nice if they had a trailhead just beyond Saltese and an improved surface over the Saltese bridge.

The Palouse Cascade Trail part 3, biking west from Rosalia.

For my third trip this summer on the Palouse Cascade Trail, I headed west from Rosalia with the goal of making it to Malden. I fell short by a couple of miles. Better to enjoy a sixteen mile round trip than have a miserable twenty miler. Part 1 is under the hiking category as that is how I traveled it.

Rosalia is a small farming town on US-195 about thirty-five miles south of Spokane. The Palouse Cascade Trail crosses the old highway just south of Rosalia on this amazing concrete arch bridge. This bridge is a local landmark and still has the Milwaukee Railroad logo painted on it.

In addition to the old highway, this bridge crossed Pine Creek , a small stream the trail follows all the way to Rock Lake. The new US-195 crosses over the railroad easement just to the east. Rosalia is about twenty miles west of Tekoa, the town I used as my base for my last trip on the trail. The level of engineering used on the bridges give a hint that this was once one of the five transcontinental railroads in the United States.

The trail is a little hard to access from the town. Rosalia does have a small park with restrooms, but the trail is located up a steep slope from the town off of rough gravel roads. Within the first mile, a steep detour bypasses a place where an old bridge was removed over Gashouse Road. This intersection is the only thing resembling a trailhead in the area.

At the intersection their is an interpretive sign. The trail surface alternates between rough gravel ballast and soft sand. I heard the surface is far more challenging west of Rock Lake and Ewan.

The first couple of miles out of Rosalia parallels US-195 and passes though a typical mix of farmland and basalt cuts as it heads north and then northwest.

The trail passes a cemetery just outside of town. There’s one off the trail just east of Tekoa as well.

At Babb Road, the trail passes under the roadway in a newer culvert. I don’t think a train would fit through it. I’m not sure if this “tunnel” replaced a taller bridge or if the road just didn’t go through before the railroad was abandoned.

Evidence of a catastrophic wildfire from a few years ago was evident along the trail. This fire burned down much of the town of Malden and three or four bridges between that town and Pine City. Here I ran into the only other person I saw. This gentleman was nearing the end of a multiday journey that started in Cedar Falls over two hundred miles away. I was impresses. I made it sixteen and was tired by the time I finished.

Here is the first of several bridges over Pine Creek west of Rosalia. It was an impressive piece of engineering.

After the bridge, the trail passed through a couple of impressive cuts trough the basalt.

There are still old telegraph posts along the trail, some of which still had the old glass insulators. This was close to my turnaround point. I was still short of Malden by a couple of miles and the next bridge over Pine Creek was just around the bend. Sometimes a man has to know his limitations.

I saw a couple of coyotes and these white tail deer. Other than that my wildlife was limited to birds.

Most of the route of this trail is bordered by either farmland or cattle ranches. There were a few pieces of abandoned machinery along the way.

The trail passes through open range areas with gates that are the responsibility of the trail user to open and close. The State of Washington requires trail users to register on line so that they understand the rules. This process is simple and can be found here. The bovines did yield the right-of-way to me without argument.

On the way back to Rosalia I took a brief detour off trail to get a different preceptive of the bridge over Pine Creek.

When I got back to Rosalia, I ran into the same fella that I talked to on my way outbound. He was camping at the local park and we shared a couple of beers and traded stories about riding bicycle trails. Not a bad way to finish the trip.

An hour later I was back home after navigating rush hour traffic through Spokane. Between this ride and my two previous trips on the Palouse Cascade Trail I think I’ve seen most of it though eastern Washington. I would really like to explore the section through the Cascade Mountains closer to Seattle. I understand that part is beautiful and more user friendly. That might have to wait until next year.

The Palouse Cascades Trail part 2, Biking from Tekoa to Seabury and back.

Yesterday I tool a sixteen mile trip on a section of the Palouse Cascades Trail on my old trusty mountain bike.

I started my trip in the small town of Tekoa. It is one of the nicer towns in the Palouse and has several historic buildings including this old art deco movie theater. Across the street is a small park with a public restroom, a rare amenity out here in farm country.

The landmark Tekoa trestle dominates the local landscape. This 976 foot long and 125 foot high structure carried the transcontinental Milwaukee Road rail line over Hangman Creek, State Road 27 and another old railroad easement.

There is a trailhead off Washington Street on the east side of the trestle with interpretive signage and a picnic table. This trail is managed as a Washington State Park and extends from the Idaho state line almost to the Seattle area.

From the trestle there is a view of the town looking up Hangman Creek. In the background is Liberty Butte, one of several large hills embedded in the middle of an expanse of wheat fields.

The trail winds through miles of agricultural land alternating between cuts through the hills and embankments between them.

About three miles in you come to Lone Pine. There are the remains of an old grain loading facility here and not much else.

Wheat is the main crop here and in places they cultivate it right to the edge of the trail bed. About eighty percent of the fields I rode by were already harvested but some were still waiting for the combines.

Tekoa is in Whitman County which bills itself as the largest wheat producing county in the United States.

Amber waves as far as the eye can see. From the trail you get to see scattered farm buildings and spacious skies.

I crossed under one old bridge. The trail surface varied from rough ballast to fresh gravel and some areas of dried compacted dirt. I don’t usually ride on gravel and going sixteen miles on it was like riding forty on pavement.

I came across two places where small bridges had been removed and the state build a bypass trail.

Just before my turn around place, I arrived at the historic Seabury Bridge. I walked the bike across as some of the gaps in the decking could easily catch a bicycle tire and eight miles is a long way to walk back. There is a lot of useful information about the trail on the home page for the Palouse Cascade Trail Coalition, a non-profit group dedicated to supporting improvements to the trail.

The Seabury Bridge crossed over another railroad which is now also abandoned. Here you can see the cut of the Spokane Inland Empire branch that at one time extended all the way to Lewiston.

Here is the best view I could get of this impressive structure. It’s long way down to the bottom and the land down there is privately owned.

So here was the end of my ride. Washington State Parks put up these mile markers at the same spots the railroad at one time had them. They show the distance from the start of the railroad in Chicago.

The way back was pretty but I did have to deal with a decent head wind. Winds on the Palouse are usually out of the southwest or west. Today it was out of the northeast.

It was a relief to make it back to Tekoa. That’s Tekoa Mountain in the background looking northeast from the deck of the trestle.

The 287 mile long trail almost spans Washington. Through Eastern Washington it is lightly used. I was the only one on it for all sixteen miles. Earlier this summer I had hiked the section along Pine Creek and Rock Lake. This was the first time I rode part of it. Next time I’ll bring a couple of replacement inner tubes just in case.

The Latah Trail

I drove down to Moscow Idaho to ride the Latah Trail and the extension through Troy down Bear Creek Canyon.

The Latah Trail starts right at the edge of Moscow Idaho the home of the University of Idaho. A bike trail continues west through Moscow and on to Pullman Washington. Both towns are in the area known as the Palouse Prairie, one of the premier wheat growing regions in America.

The Palouse Prairie is in both Washington and Idaho. On our side of the state line it covers large parts of Latah and Benewah counties as well as a small corner of Kootenai County. Moscow is the largest town in the Idaho portion of this region of rolling hills and pretty farmland.

The first seven miles of the trail parallels State Road 8 on an old railroad grade south of the highway mostly through rolling farmland.

On the way, the trail crosses over several small bridges that were built to give farmers access to there fields. There is one short section were it appears that the local governments could not secure the railroad right-of-way so the trail had to be routed down the hill to the highway and along that road until it rejoined the original alignment.

The trail slopes up to a tunnel under State Road 8 and them continues another mile paralleling the highway through a landscape that slowly becomes more forested.

The underpass looked fairly new. A bridge over the old rail road had to have had a lot more clearance.

The four mile section of the trail between the underpass with State Road 8 and the City of Troy is very scenic.

A local road is crossed on what is obviously a replacement bridge.

Along the way there are still various signs left over from the trails days as an active railroad. According to interpretive signage, the railroad used to connect Moscow to Lewiston in a round about way. Moscow is about two thousand feet higher in elevation than Lewiston.

At eleven miles, the trail hits the zero mile mark at a little park as you enter Troy. Troy is a very pleasant small Idaho farming and lumber town. A one mile long connection trail continues towards Bear Creek Canyon, but it’s just as easy and more scenic to pedal through downtown.

On the south end of town there is an interpretive sign showing the four mile long extension of the Latah Trail down Bear Creek Canyon. This part of the trail is relatively new and wasn’t here the last time I biked the route.

There were several old steel frame bridges over Bear Creek along this section. The creek was barely flowing this time of the year.

The last four miles of the trail descended steeply into the canyon. The area felt extremely remote and I saw not a single other person on the trail either going out or coming back.

It was a warm and hazy day. The skies were full of high level smoke from a wildfire in Montana. At least I couldn’t smell the smoke, but blue skies would have been nice.

All in all the Bear Creek Canyon extension of the Latah Trail was very nice with smooth pavement, no road crossings and lots of scenery.

It did however come to an abrupt end. The grade down to this point was steep enough that you could coast all the way. That meant only one thing. It was going to be a climb back to town.

Four miles back to Troy, another mile through it and then two more uphill and it was nice to see this sign. This is the high point of the line. After this it was mostly downhill all the way to Moscow.

Now I was almost back to the town it’s residents purposely mispronounce the name of just to be weird. Being Idaho’s college town that’s not the only thing they do to be different in Moscow. It was surprising how hard online information from the managing agencies is to get especially as this is the home of the University of Idaho. I did a little research and am still not certain who the managing agency is.

Right at the trailhead I found a tiny piece of history imbedded in the pavement of the side street.

I ended up pedaling 32 miles on this trail. The main drawback from my point of view is that it is a ninety minute drive from my house. The Palouse is beautiful and Bear Creek Canyon remote. There is a six mile gap in this old rail line due to a washout and a private land ownership issue before another public trail, the five and a half mile Ed Corkill Trail between Kendrick and Juliaetta picks it up again.

The Fish Lake Trail

The Fish Lake Trail is a nine mile former railroad line that was acquired and converted in to a bike trail by the City of Spokane. It ends about one mile before Fish Lake, but the trail starts again at this point. However it is called the Columbia Plateau Trail from that point on. Are you confused yet? Good, we wouldn’t want that.

The trail starts just west of downtown Spokane at a trailhead off of Government Way under a couple of impressive railroad bridges in a really sketchy neighborhood. I’ve never had a problem here, but let’s just say I’m relieved every time I return to my intact vehicle.

Apparently that is Latah Junction above the trail, the place were the mainlines to Pasco and Wenatchee split.

Immediately after leaving the trailhead, you cross a bridge over Interstate 90 with an stunning view of downtown Spokane.

The first mile of the trail is between busy highway US-195 and an area experiencing rapid construction of much needed residential developments. For the most part they look like nice neighborhoods. Fortunately much of the trail through this stretch is located in a deep cut, screening riders from both.

The basalt rock formations and thick vegetation make the place seem more remote than it is.

Just over one mile in, the urban landscape ends and the trail takes on a more rural flavor. It’s hard to believe that this is only three miles from downtown. The traffic noise fades as the trail slowly curves away from US-195.

This is one of the very few road crossings on the trail. There’s not a lot of traffic to worry about on the ride.

The trail slowly curves towards the west. At this point it passes through an area that was effected by a recent wildfire. Wildfires suddenly seem to be a reocuring theme in many of my recent posts.

Since the prevailing summer winds here are out of the southwest, in addition to a headwind you are climbing a one percent grade. The good news is that you’re paying it forward. The return trip is all downhill and usually with a tailwind.

At a place called Marshall, the trail crosses under this impressive bridge. Two active railroad lines also pass under the bridge. For much of the length of the trail, it is sandwiched between two active railroad lines.

One of the other railroad lines passes over the trail here. One good thing about the Fish lake Trail is there is a lot of railroad infrastructure to admire.

And you get to see trains! Hey, that might be my brother grinding it up the high side heading towards Pasco.

The further you get from Spokane, the emptier the countryside gets. Towards the end of the trail it passes through this little valley.

The trail is just over nine miles long and the last mile and a half of that is a dead end. It is possible to back track to the last road crossing and ride on very bikable roads the three miles of so to the beginning of the Columbia Plateau Trail the first four miles or so of which is paved.

So here is the end. Two active lines cross each other just past this point making a safe passage impossible. Spokane would like to extend the trail, but bridging this gap would be prohibitively expensive.

It has been a couple of years since I rode this trail. The good is how easy it is to access, the true scenic beauty of the trail and for the most part a good surface. The bad is that its only nine miles long and the trailhead is in a bad part of town. When I get a chance, I’ll ride the gap from the end to the Columbia Plateau Trail and create an updated post with added material.

Camas Prairie Road Trip, Day Two, Lawyer Creek, Cottonwood and Cold Spring Canyon.

I took a two day trip to explore the Camas Prairie and specifically the old route of the Camas Prairie Railroad. The Camas Prairie is south of Lewiston Idaho. Yesterday I hiked from Rubens to Lapawi Canyon.

The previous evening, I did a reconnaissance in search of a likely place to park so I could hike a section of the rail easement that had some of these tall trestles in vain. Most of the farm roads that crossed the rail line were one lane gravel roads with ditches on either side. However I did locate a number of impressive bridges. That narrowed my search down.

Finally the next morning I found a place. Visible enough from the main highway to check the probability of vandalism to my rig and far enough off the main road to make it look like I might be a farmer checking his fields all without blocking access for others. The only rails I saw on this hike were embedded in one of the few paved local roads in the area.

The hike started with open views of the Camas Prairie farmland while it slowly curved away from US-95. The highway for the most park stays within a mile to the east of the railroad easement making this section much less remote than yesterdays hike down Lapawi Canyon.

After a short walk, I came to my first trestle. Looked like an easy walk but looks can be deceiving.

This turned out to be the old trestle over Old US-95. It had to be one hundred feet high and much longer than it first appeared. There was no metal plating one this bridge and it looked like it had been abandoned much longer than those I crossed yesterday.

A lot of the wood was rotten, some of the ties loose or missing and the structure creaked and moaned under the weight of a full grown man. There’s no way it would support a train ever again. For the first, but not last time I was unnerved by the crossing. I was kind of surprised that it has not been removed as a safety hazard to the road below.

When I got to the other side I got a better view of the true size of the trestle. The good news was I made it across. The bad news was it wasn’t practical to bypass it on the way back so I was going to have to do it again.

Next I followed the rail easement through shallow cuts and small embankments with stunning views of wild flowers and farmland.

Further down the line, I came across a partially removed trestle. I guess it was the end of the line for me on this hike.

Well it turned out this trestle was bypassed years ago when the line was still active. The actual easement followed a newer embankment around the site.

Another cut through the rocks was next. The trail passes through open ponderosa pine forest here on the way to the next goal.

Here is the start of Lawyer Creek Canyon trestle. It doesn’t look like it from here but the bridge is 1500 feet long and almost 300 feet above the canyon.

Although this bridge looked to be in much better shape than the Old US-95 bridge, I opted to only walk out the first hundred feet or so to just before it opened up out of the forest. The bridge is highly visible from the highway and by now I was more worried about having to recross the first bridge.

I did manage to get under the south end of the bridge to admire the construction. The trestle continues in to the distance far outside of the forested area in the photograph.

I turned around and retraced my path to my rig. Crossing back over the Old US-95 trestle was a little scary but uneventful. Now it was time to explore the area.

I drove through Cottonwood and explored some of the back roads west of that town. I came across the St. Gertrude Monastery. This has to be one of the most unique buildings around. The view of the old monastery is partially blocked by over landscaping and ugly newer buildings but still worth a look.

The end of the pavement brought me to Kuetterville and this amazing chapel. Holy Cross Church was an unexpected sight out in the middle of farmland.

On the way back towards the town of Cottonwood, I was treated to this amazing view across the Camas Prairie towards the Seven Devils Mountains in the Hells Canyon Recreation Area. I last visited this area a couple of years ago and it’s about time for a return visit.

The Camas Prairie sits on a relatively high plateau (plus or minus 4000 feet) partially surrounded by the deep valleys of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers which are about 1000 feet above sea level. It feels like it’s own little world up here and kind of like stepping back in time half a century, and that’s in a good way.

I wasn’t done exploring the Camas Railroad so I drove back to Craigmont to try and find another quiet section of the easement to walk. About three miles northwest of town, I found a place to park off the road next to a crossing with the old easement.

Again I walked through small railroad cuts in the landscape bracket by rolling farmland. I figured I had about two more hours to kill before I drove back to Post Falls. I didn’t know what I’d find but hoped that whatever it was that it would be worth the effort.

Around the next corner was just about the prettiest view I could have imagined.

I even flushed out a couple of white tail deer.

Past another bend or two I found myself at the east side of the Cold Creek Canyon trestle. This bridge was much bigger than I expected and in similar condition to the Old US-95 bridge. I decided to cross it anyway.

It was definitely an adventure. I always wanted to check out some of these engineering marvels. After this trip I think I’m good now.

On the far-side I was able to get a better perspective on just how big this bridge really is. The timberwork is amazing. Parts of this old rail line were used in the Charles Bronson movie, Breakhart Pass.

I walked about another mile on the other side and found this old speed limit sign. I came to the only place in my trip that the old railroad easement was blocked a little further so I turned back and again crossed the Cold Creek Canyon trestle.

This time after I made it across, I descended a little way down the canyon to appreciate the timberwork from below.

Now it was time to return home. I made the nearly three hour drive back down Lapawi Canyon, through Lewiston Idaho, up the Lewiston Grade, through the Palouse Prairie and back to Coeur d’Alene. I’ve always been fascinated with abandoned railroads. After this trip I’m thinking maybe some bigger mountain hikes might be in order.

Camas Prairie Road Trip, Day One, Camas Railroad from Ruben to Lapawi Canyon and Winchester State Park.

I took a two day trip to explore the Camas Prairie and specifically the old route of the Camas Prairie Railroad. The Camas Prairie is south of Lewiston Idaho.

I originally planned to start my first hike at one of the two bridges that cross US-95 on the way up Lapawi Canyon but was unable to find a safe place to park off the side of the busy highway so I drove up to the small community of Rubens.

Rubens is a tiny collection of houses and a grain elevator about eight miles north of the highway. One my way in to “town” I came across this amazing piece of art. Sometimes the works of man and nature combine to create true beauty.

I parked off of a gravel road that crosses the old railroad easement near the grain elevator and started walking north.

Immediately I was walking through beautiful Idaho farmland. The Camas Prairie is some of the most productive grain growing land in the country.

Much of the old rail bed was covered in wild flowers. I imagine in the late summer that the growth would be thick enough to make walking the easement a challenge.

About a mile in the railroad bed turns towards the west and goes through a couple of low cuts in the landscape.

After emerging from one of the cuts I was treated to my first view of the side canyon that ends up joining Lapawi Canyon. Piles of old railroad ties were scattered along the route.

Soon, I came to the first of four tunnels I ended up passing through.

This tunnel was in very good shape considering that it has been twenty four years since the line was abandoned. This one also was curved so that you had to go in about halfway before you saw light from the other side.

Soon I came to the second tunnel. Here is where I saw my first Black Bear in several years. I was not able to get even a fleeting photo of he or she before the bear bailed down the slope. This tunnel was much shorter and as you can see nice and straight.

After the second tunnel, I came across the first of nine bridges I ended up walking across. The metal plates were intended to protect the bridge from fire caused by sparks from the trail wheels.

The third tunnel looked a little more worse for the wear. After getting past this obstruction I discovered the rest of the easement had not had the rails removed.

It was a long way down and each bridge seemed to have a different layout of the metal plates. The rails seemed to add strength to the bridges but were also tripping hazards for the unwary.

At some point I got too close to a nest so I was “attacked ” by a very angry grouse. I did almost step on one of the fleeing chicks so I guess I deserved it. A hasty retreat seemed to satisfy the mad fowl.

In places the rail bed was filled with lupines and other wild flowers. They added a lot of color to the walk. One more tunnel was around the corner.

After this curved tunnel, I was no longer following the side canyon. Now I was above Lapawi Canyon and the big views that came with it.

The old rail bed from here on alternated between rock cuts and trestle bridges. The line at one time had the nickname of the “railroad on stilts” because so much of it was elevated.

At the bottom of the canyon I could see the highway I had so recently drove up in my search for an access to the lower section of the easement. I think I got lucky. The views looked much better up here.

Some of the rock cuts turned out to be a challenge to negotiate. I guess after decades of exposure to the elements, it is to be expected that the line would slowly revert to nature.

The views from the bridges were outstanding. I was somewhat surprised at well the bridges had weathered the years of neglect. Later on my trip I would discover that this is not always the case.

Finally I came across this beauty, a bridge with an S curve and much bigger than any of the others. I thought about calling it good but just had to see what was on the other side.

Too bad I forgot to bring a lawn chair. Imagine sitting on this platform and soaking up the sun.

So this is the view from almost the other side. It looked like the easement was going to go through another tunnel next.

The entrance to the next tunnel was right around the corner. This was where I saw my first warning sign of any kind. The portal was almost blocked by rockfall. I figured if someone went to the trouble of warning me that I should heed the warning. I was already well over two hours out so this is where I turned around.

On the way back I enjoyed the view of the first railroad bridge from this post behind me. Again, I was glad I did the upper hike. I understand that the lower you go in the canyon, the better your chance of crossing paths with a rattlesnake.

I enjoyed the views on the way back as much as I did on the way in.

Now it was time to find my camping spot. I had reserved a site at Winchester State Park only a few miles back near the top of the grade up Lapawi Canyon and at the edge of the Camas Prairie.

Winchester State Park is a small state park with a primitive campground on a small manmade lake. There wasn’t much to do there but it was a place to stay. The ride back home was well over two hours and I wanted to explore the area more the next day.

They did have a nice foot bridge accessing the short trail system.

Before I called it an evening, I made a short side trip to check out my goal for the next day, the Lawyer Creek Canyon bridge. There is a pull out with interpretive signage on US-95 with a great view of the trestle, the only metal one on the line above Lapawi Canyon. This is the view from the other side on from a one lane gravel farm road.

My original plan was to hike up Lapawi Canyon from USD-95 the first day and then explore around the Lawyer Creek trestle the next day. I think modifying the hike to start in Rubens and work my way down turned out much better.

The Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s, along the Coeur d’Alene River.

On two rides over a three day period, I bicycled a thirty mile section of the trail out and back from Bull Run Lake to Springston and then from Pine Creek to Bull Run Lake. This middle section of Idaho’s best rail trail is by far the most scenic part. East of Pine Creek, the trail travels through the Silver Valley and all the small towns in it. West of Springston, the trail enters the Coeur d’Alene Reservation and follows the lakeshore and Plummer Creek to Plummer.

Friday, June 7, 2024 Bull Run to Springston.

The Bull Run Trailhead is just off of State Road 3 in Rose Lake about four miles south of the I-90 exit. It is close to mile marker 33. West of the Bull Run Trailhead, the trail passes through nice forested areas along the river.

Extensive wetlands are found on both sides of the trail between the State Road 3 underpass and Harrison.

The marshlands support a lot of wild life such as Great Blue Herons. Over the seventeen years I’ve ridden the trail, the State of Idaho has acquired much of what was once farm and ranchland in this area and is restoring the wetlands while mitigating heavy metal contamination which used to decimate bird life.

Around Medimont the trail passes along the shore of Medicine and Cave Lakes, part of a chain of shallow lakes connected to and on both sides of the Coeur d’Alene River.

Near mile marker 18 you come to the Springston Trailhead. Another three miles would put you in Harrison.

The old bridge at the Springston Trailhead has been condemned and is now closed to all traffic. Springston was once the site of a small town. No trace of it remains.

Sunday, June 9, 2024 Pine Creek to Bull Run Lake.

Right off of the Interstate there is a trailhead just outside of Pinehurst, the second largest town in the valley. A short spur goes right in to downtown and there is more parking there. The Pine Creek Trailhead is near mile marker 48.

About halfway between Pine Creek and the Kingston Trailhead an old railroad bridge carries the trail over the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River.

Just past Kingston another bridge crosses the North Fork. You will usually see lots of folks floating this section of the river.

The next five miles into Cataldo is the most scenic section of the trail. In the background is Frost Peak. Some years it has snow on top until July.

There are several rock cuts along the trail.

Just before the Cataldo Trailhead you cross one more big railroad bridge, this time over the river after the south and north forks combine.

Cataldo Mission is not on the trail, but is close by. If one has time I highly recommend dropping by this little Idaho State Park and visit the oldest building in the state on your way back to Coeur d’Alene and Spokane.

Between Cataldo and Bull Run, the trail continues along the Coeur d’Alene River and its adjacent wetlands.

Another view of Frost Peak and the river.

You can’t go wrong with this trail. I usually try to start my out and back rides heading west into the prevailing wing so if it picks up later in the day it will be at my back.

And of course they’re moose. I saw one each day. My record is seven on one ride. I’ve seen them pretty much everywhere between Kingston and Springston.

The thirty miles between Pine Creek and Springston is in my opinion the nicest bike trail in the country and I have rode on the Mickelson, the Elroy Sparta and the C&O.