June 18, 2015 by Bruce Wynkoop
I’m going to jump ahead a bit here as I told a nice young man I met on this trip that I would post this blog soon and include his picture in it. So I’m going to blog this trip before I review the ride I did last year (yes, I’m a bit behind–don’t judge me). My friend, Lee, and I signed up for another Road Scholar trip this year, named “Biking the Idaho Panhandle on Rails to Trails,” which included bicycle riding, although not that many miles per day (30 or so). Road Scholar, who used to go by the name Elder Hostel, is a company that sells trips that include educational opportunities along with various levels of physical activities. In fact, my last blog was about a Road Scholar trip we took to Door County. I’ve done three trips with them and they have all been well-organized, enjoyable, and attended by people who are interesting and fun to meet. If you take one of these trips, however, you have to be flexible as it is impossible to give everyone (usually there are 20-25 participants) exactly what they want. Some people will want to ride less miles per day, others will want to ride more; some will want to ride faster, some will want to ride slower. Most people just fit what they want into the program.
We flew into Spokane, Washington and were picked up at the airport by Joe & Carolyn, a couple we had met on the Door County ride a couple of years ago. The four of us then drove to the tiny town of Wallace, Idaho (pop. 956), with a stop in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho on the way. We checked out the floating boardwalk (which caused just a bit of sea-sickness), shopped a bit, and had lunch at the Unchained Tap House which had an interesting decor–tables with various bicycle parts (pedals, chains, sprockets, etc.) embedded in the tabletops and bicycles and bicycle paraphernalia on the walls, and bar stools with pedals attached to the bottoms (they didn’t spin–we tried). The food and beer was good and the stop gave us a good start to the week. Many of our fellow participants took the shuttle provided by the program (for a $40 each-way fee) from the airport to Wallace (and back at the end of the week) and we all met at the Wallace Inn that evening. During the “meet and greet” we found the others, as is usually the case, to be friendly and interesting.
The next morning (Monday) the group was taken, in two vans, to Kellogg, Idaho, where we picked up our bicycles at Excelsior Cycle. Each rider was given a new hybrid bike with front suspension and a bike helmet (if they hadn’t brought their own) to use for the week. After all were outfitted, the bikes were put onto the van and we were transported to the eastern trailhead of The Trail of the Couer d’Alenes at Mullen. From there we had a nice, downhill 8-mile ride back to Wallace, then 22 more miles to Cataldo. The last 10 miles or so of the day’s ride were into a fairly stiff wind so we were fairly well worn out by the end. We were transported back to Wallace and I, at least, ended the day in the hot tub. Dinner was at the very nice 1313 Historic Saloon in Wallace. The food was good and the service excellent. After dinner a representative of the State Dept. of Recreational Trails gave an informative talk on the trails. Tuesday morning, after breakfast, we were hauled to the western end of the trail at Plummer and had another 10-mile downhill ride. While the entire trail is beautiful, this 10-mile segment is one of the most beautiful rides I have ever had. By unspoken agreement, the group rode single-file with a lot of room between riders as we were all paying attention to the beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to stop to take pictures so I can’t share some of the best scenery of the week.
Jaden, ice cream, and me
After 15 miles we stopped at Harrison, Idaho for lunch (we packed lunches each day) and I was able to sate the ice cream monster that lives inside me at The Creamery ice cream shop. The aforementioned nice young man, Jaden, (that I had told to look for his photo in this blog) served me a green apple with raspberry swirls ice cream cone. His right wrist was in a cast and he told us his dog had pulled him over a cliff. When I mentioned that the dog is supposed to save him from going over a cliff he replied, “Yeah, that’s what my dad said.” Anyway, he’s a nice, well-spoken kid who obviously knows how to get along with customers. We finished the ride with another 11 miles and that evening had a presentation on The Big Burn, a large forest fire in the 1890′s, and Big Ed Pulasky, who didn’t actually invent the fire fighting tool, the pulasky, but popularized its use. Our speaker, a knowledgeable member of the Dept. of Natural Resources ended his talk by saying, “I’ll bet you’ve never heard a speaker end a talk with this, but I have to go to the bathroom.” His honesty earned him a well-deserved laugh. On Wednesday the group was hauled across the Montana border to the eastern trailhead of the Hiawatha trail, a nationally acclaimed 15-mile rail trail that winds its way through the mountains. It passes through 10 tunnels, one of which is 1.7 miles long, and over seven sky-high steel trestles. If you start at the East Portal trailhead the trail is all downhill at a 1.7% average grade. The trail is dirt and gravel and, while it is fairly easy pedaling, you still have to pay attention and control the handlebars.
Lee commented that we weren’t getting much exercise but I said we were getting a pretty good upper-body workout just by keeping the bikes steady on the gravel. Once again the scenery was spectacular, and this time I did stop to take pictures. The St. Paul Pass Tunnel was 1.7 miles long, dark (obviously), and wet and riding through it is pretty eerie. You obviously need a good flashlight and a steady hand on the handlebars, but if you just keep a steady pace you’ll do fine. The rest of the tunnels are not nearly so long and a rider doesn’t even need a light to ride through most of them. Riding over the trestles is fun and gives the rider great views of the countryside. Most of them are very high, although the width is enough (as wide as a highway) that a rider does not feel any discomfort–you never feel like you are close to the edge. When riders reach the end of the 15-mile trail there is a state park shuttle that will transport them back to the start if they don’t want to ride their bikes back. Several of our group opted to ride their bikes back to the start but my group and I had taken time to stop and take photos so we rode the Road Scholar van back to the first tunnel. We did, however, walk back through the long tunnel and found it to be even eerier that way.
Later that afternoon, on our own but at the suggestion of Road Scholar, most of the group toured the Sierra Silver Mine in Wallace.
