| Campground: | Snowberry Campground, Athol, ID 83801. |
| Total Distance: | 8937 Miles. |
| Traveled Today: | 195 Miles. |
| Key Highlights | Hiawatha Mountain bike trail. Wallace, Idaho. |
Farragut state park is a great place- it features a huge lake, swimming beaches, places to kayak, a small town with restaurants, and a Disc Golf facility (like playing golf but with a Frisby disc). However, considering this opportunity to rest a little and recharge after the great adventures north of the border, and because the weather was perfect for a day in the water (~90 F) – we decided we didn’t want to do it.
Instead, we pulled in our plan for “tomorrow” and headed to Wallace to bike the famous Hiawatha bike trail. In 1909 the train company decided to make a fortune and break a rail path in the mountains to get to the White Pine and Cedar trees in these forests in the area for lumber. Unfortunately, A year later, the entire forest was taken by the massive fire of 1910 (known as the “Big Burn” – one of the most significant fires in US history). For years later, the train evolved to cargo, and passenger, becoming one of the first routes to get electrified (mainly as sparks from the diesel trains set more fires) – until the train company got bankrupt – due to lack of profitability and fraud at the management level. The rails were taken out, and Idaho now has many fantastic bike trails like this. Hiawatha is considered the best; it costs 36$ a person over the weekend and only $13 during the week- of course, we were there during the weekend. and : 15 miles of downhill bike rides in cold ten tunnels (the longest was as long as 8900 feet ~3K), tall and beautiful sky-high trestles( bridges), great forest, and inspiring views. The best part is that the train is running the hill at a constant slope of 1.7% – so the trail is not steep, and we finished it without burning any calories, other than the power we applied pressing the hand-break. We can not recommend this trial more. If you wonder how we got back to our car – there is a bike shuttle service taking the biker up in old school buses. So really no need to work hard.
To refresh from the intense fun, we stopped at Wallace, a friendly old city that looked very vibrant in the morning and very empty in the afternoon, for a nice beer in the local brewery.