The Hiawatha Trail

Okay, this post is LOOOOOONG overdue, but I felt that it was worth putting up, even out of sync! This summer, during Mom's visit, we took her on a bike path called the Hiawatha Trail. This is a beautiful stretch of abandoned railroad that travels over and through the Idaho wilderness. The trail you ride on has been cleared of the old railroad ties, but you get to go through 5-6 tunnels carved through the mountains and over 7-8 wooden trestle bridges that span some pretty big canyons. We had a fantastic time, and thought we would share some pics!!

Starting off from the Parking Lot - what's with the long sleeves, isn't it still warm outside?

One of the first things you do is go through a 2 mile long tunnel. You need a headlamp to be able to see where you're going - in the middle of the tunnel, you can't see daylight from either direction and the temperature hovers around 40 degrees!!The light at the end of the tunnel....
Mom and I heading out onto the first trestle bridgeTaking a breather before we head into yet another tunnel - note the sign that says "Turn on Lights". If you forget, you'll probably crash into the wall.
Mom and I one of the longer trestle bridges

Amy made the mistake of looking down..... The trees look kind of small from 220 feet above the ground.
Idaho has plenty of trees.
A beautiful valley - it's really neat to get a birds eye view like this.

After lunch, we took a short rest on one of the bridges. "Amy, let us sleep!!"

Me standing on a trestle bridge with the largest bridge visible in the background. We are pretty high up! But, alas, the end is near....

We ran into a bunch of chipmunks while we were waiting for the shuttle to take us back to the parking lot. These chipmunks were trained con-artists - and fearless!! I actually got this one to come up and take a nut off the toe of my shoe. Cute little bugger!

All in all, we had a great time, and we hope to do it again next summer!