Friday, August 8, 2008

A Ride on the Route of the Hiawatha



Hi Everyone, We are Back!

What did we come back to?? Yikes, what a wet summer here in NH...

I want to THANK all of the ride hosts that worried about each of the Thursday Rides and Thursday Riders over the past months. You all probably ran around between weather forecasts, the windows and the blogsite trying to decide whether to cancel the ride or not. Thank you Linda Kearney, Trish Ashworth, Roland Dubois, Leland Yee and Ralph-3-Times-and-I-Quit-Fiore. When I managed to be near a computer, I always tried to check up on the Thursday and Saturday rides via the blogs or emails - it was really fun to read about the rides and see the photos!!!
I wanted to share with all of you some of the experiences we had on our trip. So many times I said to Tom - "This ride would be GREAT for the ThursdayBike group - I WISH THEY WERE HERE - they would LOVE this one!!!

I know that you don't want to hear about how much sun, hot temperatures and dry air we experienced, so I thought I would avoid all that and give you a travel-log and some photos of a day we spent that included a damp, dripping, dark and cold (45 degrees) experience (like what we have here in NH right now....). It was a ride on the "Route of the Hiawatha" Rail Trail.

Some history first...

From 1906 to 1911, thousands of workers constructed the Pacific extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. From the info on the map: "It has been called the most scenic stretches of railroad in the country (after the Conway Scenic Railroad, of course...). Winding through 10 tunnels and over 7 high steel trestles, the 46 mile route crosses the rugged Bitterroot Mountains between Idaho and Montana. The Route of the Hiawatha is best known for the long, dark St. Paul Pass or "Taft" Tunnel which burrows for 1.7 miles under the state line". The rail line was electrified, and became the longest electrified mainline in the world." The railroad ran until it went bankrupt in 1977.


At present, 15 miles of the route are open for biking. These miles snake through steep terrain through the tunnels and over the trestles at a constant 2% grade (1000 ft elevation change). Another 31 miles of the route is currently under conversion to bike path. The trail is hardpack dirt, fine to ride with wide touring tires or a mountain bike. Tom and I did the 30 mile out-and-back because I wanted to do the tunnels and trestles twice.

On this rainy damp day, I thought I would share our ride with all of you....







Start at the Entrance to the 8771 ft (1.7 mile) long St. Paul Pass Tunnel. We needed a jacket, helmet, headlamp and handlebar headlight. As we approached the tunnel, we could feel it "breathe" cold, damp, musty air (like our basements in NH this summer).




Light at the end of the tunnel or the headlight or an oncoming train???

Note the drainage ditches on the sides of the tunnel.





It was dark in the tunnel.


The headlamp and headlight gave me just just barely enough light to ride it. A tiny white dot in the center of the photo is the light at the end of the tunnel over a mile away, and the white rectangular dots on the sides are reflectors that help keep you out of the ditches. The tunnel drips and plunks waterdrops and waterfalls throughout. It is 45 degrees in there.







Out of the tunnel.

Tunnel exits to the site of the railroad town of "Roland" where the roundtable was located to turn the engines around.











Because of the restriction to a 2% grade for the railroad, the tracks travel gradually for miles down the side of a steep sided canyon then hairpin turns down the other side in order to achieve the elevation change of 1000 ft. As we travel down, we can see the trestles on the other side of the canyon below us.


View of Clear Creek Trestle down below us on the other side of the canyon.





Turkey Creek Trestle





Tom on the Barnes Creek Trestle.







Tom at the exit of Tunnel "24.








Kelly Creek Trestle







Turkey Creek and Russel Creek Trestles







Back here in NH, I hope we are soon to emerge from this dark damp tunnel of rain and gloom. There is a light at the end of this low pressure system!!!???

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