By John Rezell
At first it sounded intriguing, if not inviting.
Ride the Hiawatha, a 15-mile stretch of an abandoned railroad now a mountain bike trail carved into the side of a mountain with a bunch of towering trestles and tunnels.
That’s the thing about advertising: Can’t live with it; can’t live without it — no matter how hard I try.
Reflecting on my many years of riding my bike, the number of experiences that
actually pay for advertising is quite small. Aside from organized group rides, it’s practically nil.
Even though the Hiawatha’s advertising borders on extreme — with pleasant smile-inducing photos of families of ages enjoying the trial — my pre-ride research, as usual, was minimal at best. I did know two things:
First, I wasn’t going to take a shuttle to get to the trail. I like to explore on my own.
Second, I was going to ride it both ways — up then down — and not just make a downhill trip.
We stopped in Wallace, Idaho to get directions to the bottom of the trail — not the popular start at the top. I swear to this day the feller at the counter of the local information booth said it was 14 miles to the Pearson Trailhead on Moon Pass Road.
Now a rather little known fact about the tiny town Wallace with its population of 828 is that its mayor has proclaimed Wallace to be the Center of the Universe. Since all maps and directions need a solid base for starters, well, you would imagine that directions that begin at the Center of the Universe should be, well, accurate. I suppose that’s just me.
So we head out Moon Pass Road, a twisting, turning gravel mountain road without many directional signs for road signs. In fact, in just a mile or so you stumble upon the first fork in the road after the Center of the Universe and you might think that would be a grand location for a sign. But there are none.
After 18 miles my anticipation for a day of adventure began to wear thin. I was pretty certain I made a wrong turn somewhere, and that first fork in the road lingered as a prime suspect. Undaunted, a few miles later a sign finally confirmed we were still on Road 456. At 21 miles we hit the trailhead.
With all that water under the bridge, I felt confident a great day lie ahead. Nice sunny skies drenched the parking lot, not too hot yet. I got my bike out of the Santa Fe and rolled around to warm up a pinch, sporting a big smile when, gulp! A bee zooms into my mouth and stings my tongue!
This isn’t a first for me. Living in the Appalachian hills of Tennessee a number of years ago I was just about at the turnaround point of a six-hour ride when a bee stung my tongue. All I could envision was my tongue swelling up and choking me to death.
So I stopped at a farm house and asked for some ice. The woman was kind enough to fill my water bottle with some, so I rode on, constantly popping ice onto my aching tongue.
Back to the Hiawatha: Debbie questioned whether I should do the ride or not, but I was on assignment for my magazine, so I trudged onward. Four miles into the ride, taking GoPro video in the first long tunnel, it beeped and quit. CARD FULL!
Damn! But, aha! I always have a backup, even though I was never a Boy Scout. I pulled out my Nikon. On the first trestle about a mile later, ZAP! BATTERIES EXHAUSTED!
Aha! Again! I dug around my camera bag for the backup batteries, but, of course, I found an empty battery package.
I rolled back five miles to the Santa Fe. Powered up my laptop, cleaned off the GoPro card, changed batteries in my Nikon, and rolled out again.
As I ascended the 1,000-foot climb popping in and out of short tunnels and rolling across breath-taking trestles, it struck me that a healthy chunk of those descending didn’t look as though they were having much fun.
Especially families. Sure, it’s a descent. But it’s a railroad descent, which means it isn’t a coast your way down descent. Kids were exhausted. Parents frustrated. Think twice about it if you’re kids don’t ride much, although I’m certainly not one to criticize for not doing research ahead of time.
As I neared the final stretch with longer tunnels, I realized I made one major mistake in my equipment choices.
Although I had a light, it wasn’t one of those blind the dude coming at ya prison spotlights you see on many commuters these days. Not only that, what lumens it did offer were fading as the tunnels got longer and longer.
Finally, as I hit the overly hyped St. Paul Pass Tunnel, reality hit hard.
Once you’re about 100 feet into a tunnel, it’s pitch black. Eclipse darkness. My light barely lit the sloppy, muddy trail immediately before my front tire, much less the six-inch wide, six-inch deep drainage ditch between me and the icy cold dripping walls.
In the other tunnels there always seemed to be someone coming down lighting up the way. Not this time.
Of sure, the brochures will tell you this is an 8,771-foot tunnel that never warms to more than about 40 degrees. Maybe I saw that, but I certainly didn’t do the math to calculate that 8,771 feet is 1.6 miles — plenty long enough to ice any sweat you have worked up.
I also did not consider there might be an inch or so of muddy water standing in most of the tunnel, constantly splashing up from my front tire to sandblast my shoes and shins.
The only option for sight was to hold my cellphone light in my cold, freezing right hand and aim at the wall and ditch, and hope I didn’t take a dive.
I must say riding the famous tunnel was memorable. Not necessarily enjoyable as much as adventurous. So I emerged back into daylight hoping to warm up in that wonderful mid-day sun. Instead, I was greeted by a loud crack of thunder and dark gray skies.
This is the spot where most folks start their ride, just heading down to get shuttled back to the top. There really is no place to hunker down, and no telling which direction that weather is raging from. There is an information table set up. But they have no weather forecasting devices.
Hoping I might outrun the storm since I didn’t see any evidence of it as I entered the tunnel of darkness, I quickly spun around and re-entered the tunnel to begin my descent. By the time I came out the other side, once again frozen from icy mud caked on my legs, the rain began to fall.
I donned my rain jacket over my keep-me-warm-in-the-tunnel layer, and continued down, occasionally hearing a rumble of thunder rattle in the far distance and echo through the endless canyons as I ratcheted it up to full throttle.
Then the deluge began, catching me between tunnels, drenching me like an Oregon waterfall. The wind whipped up roaring through the trees, and since I was already soaked from the mud and grim of St. Paul Pass Tunnel, I hammered to get down as soon as possible.
Then the hail pelted me, nice pea-sized pellets that stung my cheeks. Soon after a bright flash of lightning with an almost immediate blast of ear-shattering thunder sent my heart rate off the charts.
I opted to stay on my bike with rubber between me and the ground rather than stand with my metal cleats, passing a couple of families unprepared for the storm huddled under trees like scenes of Grapes or Wrath or something like that.
Eventually the storm blew past the trail. With some five miles remaining to the bottom I saw a father stripping himself down to cover his soaked to the bone, shivering young daughter with her teeth chattering.
I donated a pair of dry leg warmers to the cause, and finished my trek down to sunny clearing skies at the end.
Down there the lines waiting to get on shuttles were easily 100 or more deep. Again, not a lot of smiles.
Me? Oh sure, I was smiling. I did it My Way.
Time to ride
