Railroad Nirvana - Avery ID Tunnels and trestles

[John E Davies]

This first part is a teaser with a few pics from the pre-run Recon Ride I made over the Aug 11 weekend with my riding buddy Mike (aka MikefromMT). The WIRM Dual Sport group ride will be Aug 25-26 with many more pics - I'll post them at the tail end of this thread then.


I arrived at the Cliff Creek primitive campground Friday afternoon and pitched my tent, and went exploring by myself. I don't like to ride these mountains alone but I planned to stick to easy roads and populated areas around the Route of the Hiawatha Bicycle Trail. I wanted to check out alternate routes for extra loop rides for the upcoming Group Ride, to give more experienced riders "extra laps" with additional scenery.


This surprise tunnel is located in Montana on an abandoned railbed between the I-90 rest stop and Lookout Pass, where I-90 crosses into Idaho. The road is fast, smooth gravel except for inside the tunnel, where ceiling rockfalls have turned into deep whoop-de-doos - first gear, feet on the pegs and pray riding in the deep darkness. I rode another 3 miles before realizing I was headed toward the pass and not back toward my camp, as the NFS map seemed to indicate, so I backtracked from there. The sun was going down and I couldn't afford the time to go further.

I rode up NF-507 to Bullion Pass and checked out a few hundred yards of the ATV trail that leads back about 5 miles along the high ridge to Roland Summit, near the Taft Tunnel. It is rough, rocky and rooty - and NO place for a solo rider in these mountains. Back down the west side of the mountain I intersected dusty Moon Pass Road (NF-456) and rode back to camp.


I had a little time left before dusk, so I went up the Loop Creek Road east of the campground to see if the road went through. This is the Adair Trailhead for the bike trail. The tunnel is off limits to motorized traffic, like all the tunnels and trestles on the trail.

For a full sized panorama click here: http://www.spokanister.net/images_we...n_13%20PAN.JPG

I returned to camp and the next morning Mike arrived.


Mike posing in front of his vintage 25 year old Kawasaki 250. That's my off-road ready LX-450 and tent site in the background. I camp light and uncomfortable - as I get older I wish for a Toy Hauler, but I would not appreciate the hassles of maintenance and towing.


We rode all morning over new and old roads, exploring the side tracks to find connections for a loop ride. In the afternoon we rode down off the high ridges (the State Line Road aka NF-391) and found this trestle. It was pretty well gated - you could see where some daring ATVers had got around on the left, but I wasn't willing to risk injury trying it on a bike.


We hiked across the trestle, which was about 0.2 miles long and curved across the head of the stream valley. It was totally unrestored, unlike the trestles along the bike trail that have guard rails and no holes or trees in the railbed.


Looking down at the forest road we used to descend from the high ridge. It's about a 150 foot drop.


On the other side of the trestle was a small beaver dam and pond. It was great fun throwing the large rocks (ballast) from the railbed into the water below.


A hundred yards beyond the trestle we came upon this tunnel.


Mike took off his riding jacket to cool off - it was very nice in the deep shade. You can just barely make out the whoop-de-doo floor of the tunnel further back in the shadows. More on that later....

We looped around along I-90 and headed back up the mountain toward the East Portal of the 2 mile long Taft Tunnel, which is the main entry area for the bike trail. Coming back down a disused section of the railbed from the parking lot, we encountered the other end of the tunnel pictured above, and rode through.


We could have easily riddden across the trestle, but I wasn't especially eager to do it considering the need to turn around at the far end with no guard rails and crumbling sides.


I rode ahead and stopped at the far entrance to take pics. Here Mike is about 1/3 of the way through, negotiating the deep, loose gravel whoops. It's challenging first gear stuff, especially with eyes not adjusted to the dark, but a fall would be painless unless you whacked one of the rough concrete walls.


Milke exiting the rock barrier to the tunnel. Sorry for the crummy pic - I didn't want to ask him to ride that several times for multiple pics.

We returned to camp having ridden about 100 miles of dirt and gravel forest roads. I now had enough new gps data to design a nice multi-loop dual sport ride for the end of the month ride.

I'll post the gps data for these tunnels in a while, when I get it cleaned up.

Here's a link to last year's (non-group) ride, with regional info, railroad history, bike trail info and maps, and a bunch of pics:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showt...28#post3211228

And here's a link to the announcement for this year's Aug 25 Group Ride:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=255081

[Gadget Boy]

it sure looks like a great place to do some beautiful D-S riding, thanks for posting

[rivers]

Great place to ride...

[jeckyll]

Those old abandoned railbeds always seem to make for a good time! :)

[nwgs]

Bump

[hazpat]

Neat!