For several years, our family has talked about wanting to take a trip to northern Idaho to ride the Route of the Hiawatha. We received an Idaho tourism magazine in the mail a long time ago, and after reading about it, Jackson has been asking to go ever since. The trail is 15 miles long and follows the crest of the Bitterroot Mountains on an old railroad route. You go through nine old train tunnels and across seven super tall trestle bridges through the forrest.
We were originally thinking about taking a trip to Canada to visit Banff at the end of this summer, but with Covid-19, we had to change our plans. I don't think travel to Canada was even allowed at the time. This trip seemed like the perfect fit for 2020, so we planned an entire trip to northern Idaho around it. After our pit stop in Island Park, we continued our journey north until we hit Kellogg, Idaho, where we stayed the next couple of nights.
We woke early the next morning and headed out to rent a few extra bikes and buy tickets for the trail. After getting everything shuttled to the start of the trail, we were ready to go!
Right at the beginning of the trail is a huge tunnel that is 1.6 miles long! It was so cold in the tunnel and pitch black. You also cross the Montana and Idaho state lines while riding through, and it was a highlight of the trail for sure.
Molly showing off her "Hiawatha tail" from the mud in the tunnel when we emerged on the other side!
In total we rode through nine different tunnels of various lengths on the trail. So fun! Molly made sure to remind us all to turn on our lights.
We rented this tag-a-long bike for Molly hoping it would work out ok. She did so awesome! She loved riding behind Sean and it worked out so well. I LOVE these pictures of the two of them.
The trestle bridges were super tall, which was so cool! It was fun looking across the mountains and seeing future bridges we would be crossing.
It is really hard to tell from a photo just how high these bridges are. The pine trees below are really tall, and the bridges tower above them.
Dropping pebbles and checking out the loooong way down!
The kids did so awesome and it was such a fun experience for our whole family. Davis was so cute because toward the end of the trail, we realized he thought we were going to have to turn around and ride all the way back up. He seemed pretty relieved when he found out we weren't!
After completing the trail, we had to get shuttled back to the long tunnel at the beginning. While we didn't have to ride back up the entire trail, we did get to ride back through the tunnel to the start to return our bike rentals and get back to our car. We loved getting a chance to ride through one more time and stopped in the middle and turned off all of our lights. It truly was pitch black!
Coming out of the tunnel:
The Trail of the Hiawatha was such an awesome experience for our whole family and I am so glad we made it happen!
