This is the beginning of the Hiawatha Trail...It's a rails to trails kind of path. Used to be an old railroad track winding 15 miles through the mountains. The original trains ran from Chicago to Seattle. The 15 miles is all downhill on a slight grade. We passed through 4 tunnels, the first being the longest and most scary for me. I (Lorraine) am a bit claustrophobic so it made for a little panic in the beginning. We needed to have good lights on our bikes since the first tunnel is 1 3/4 miles long. It stays a chilly 45 degrees all year round in there. The temps outside that day were over 80. So we packed up and moved on to the bikes with cameras in hand.
Here is the end of the first tunnel. My hands were ice cubes and my teeth were chattering. Our lights were barely enough to see though blackness of this tunnel. It was a crazy ride. I kept wanting to open my eyes wider but that didn't help and I probably looked like an owl.
Upon venturing out of the tunnel we were greeted with this beautiful waterfall that sounded as wonderful as it looked. I think I could have sat there all day and just enjoyed it. It would have been nice to dive in had I not been a Popsicle from the first part of the ride.
Tom plopped himself down and starting snapping away to his perfect shot.
This was the end of the tunnel opening. See it's a wee bit dark in there. The smell actually reminded me of Pirates of the Carribean at Disneyland.
The was the next tunnel. Not so bad since we could see the other end.
One of the first crossing over a tressel.
It's very high. YIKES!!
Looking back at the tressel we crossed.
Here we go again......across another tressel and then
another tunnel....
This next tunnel they kept us out of and we rode around it.
We were told not to feed the animals, should we encounter any. I don't think the other people before us or this little guy got that memo because he was very friendly and seemed to know what we were there for. I figured he knows how to pose for the camera and then get a cracker...
The rest of the trail was pretty much like this....Which was just a joy to ride. When we got to the bottom we had the option of riding back up or taking the shuttle bus. We opted for the shuttle bus since we purchased tickets and Tom's knee couldn't do much more. The bus took us back up the hill to the long tunnel we did in the beginning and we had to done the jackets and ride back through the black hole of darkness to the other side.
I must say it was a splendid day...
And the funniest part of the day was coming out of the final tunnel with a stripe of mud up both our butts from out back tires spewing the muddy water up. Our backpacks and backside had this stripe, as did everyone coming out of there. Too funny.
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