What time is it? St.Regis, Idaho

Sunday, May 28th 2017

Following another long ( for us ) day of driving the 240 miles north  through the mountains, we stopped for the night at Fairmont RV Park in Anaconda, Montana.  The owner of the previous campground suggested we take this beautifully scenic route, but luckily I had read on the weather channel that there was a flood warning for that area.

 Studying the maps carefully, we realized the road was closed exactly where he was sending us! We took the longer route, which was devoid of traffic and also very pretty! What’s not pretty when you are not looking at the back end of a tractor trailer truck?  

Monday, May 29th 2017

 We had a pull through site, so we didn’t have to unhook the car.  I am writing this a week later, and neither Norm nor myself can recall this park.  I need to remember to take pictures of each place to jog our memories in the future.  Oh, it’s tough to get old, but I always say the alternative is REALLY bad!

The trip from Craters of the Moon in Arco, Idaho to St. Regis, Montana took two days of driving.

Our next destination is to ride the “Crown Jewell” of rail-to-trail projects I had heard about from a friend.  The nationally acclaimed Route of the Hiawatha utilizes the abandoned Milwaukee Railroad bed. The 15 mile stretch between East Portal and Pearson Trailheads includes ten tunnels and seven sky high steel trestles, and accommodates mountain bikes, hikers and even wheelchairs! (equipped for gravel roads). If you want, you can park at the top, ride the gentle 2% downhill grade enjoying the views, and take a shuttle back to the top!  How perfect!

The Route of the Hiawatha is an easy ride most anyone can do.  Helmets and headlamps are mandatory, rewards are tremendous!

I did hours of research on this trail described as “one of the most scenic stretches in the country” to find out exactly where the trailhead parking lots are located, and where the closest campgrounds might be.  I even called the company who runs the shuttle months ago to double check everything. (I called a second time just a couple of weeks ago to triple-check the details).  Yes, I can get a little over zealous about details! But that’s a good thing, right?

We even added an extra day to our stay at Nugget RV Resort just to make sure we could ride this rail-trail even if we got rained out one day. It was that important to me.

Thank goodness Norm was reading the very fine print of the brochure we received at check in, and discovered that during this time frame, the imperative ( for us ) shuttle was operating only weekends and holidays! This is Monday night!  I could not believe it!

We spotted other campers at the Nugget RV Park that had driven 50 miles with there company of their well-protected dogs!  I just had to get a picture!

Racking our brains on what to do, we spent some time looking at our vacation schedule to see how we could possibly return on the way back through, being very cognizant of the shuttle’s schedule this time.  It could be done, but it would be hundreds of miles out of the way, and a lot of re-scheduling. Sweet Norm was willing to make the adjustment for me, but I wasn’t sure I was.

Nugget RV Park is a lovely campground that is very quiet, and definitely excels in customer service!  They were very helpful with information about things to do in the area, and when we told the owner our disappointing situation, she said she would try to figure something out. We said that we would be willing to hire someone, or rent a car to make this ride possible, so she asked one of the off-duty workers if he would like to make a little extra money and take us to the trailhead.  No one was really sure where it was, so that night Norm and I spent a couple of hours researching exactly where the drop off point was.

In the morning, I called the shuttle company again to find out exactly the route they take. She told me that the road is closed to the public right now because of snow, and there was no way our “friend” could get us to the trailheads!  I nearly cried.  When I told her no one at the shuttle company had mentioned the early season schedule to me she felt very badly (she should, because I recognized her British accent so I knew it was her).  She made a call and arranged for one of the workers to pick us up and shuttle us back at precisely 3PM Pacific Time.   I was so thankful and excited!  Thank goodness, I had called, or we would have driven all that way and discovered the road closed over the mountain pass! 

Tuesday, May 30th 2017

Finally arriving at the upper trailhead (which is open for public parking) we were glad to find out that the attendant was aware of our shuttle, and we discussed that we would be picked up at 4pm Mountain time, ( 3PM Pacific which is what they go by ). That would give us 4 hours, we is much longer than needed to ride the 15 miles. It would certainly be plenty of time to smell a ton of roses along the way, which was fine by me!

This tunnel was built in 1909 and certainly enjoyed today! A very unusual way to start a bike ride.

 

Boy, it was a little unnerving to bike ride this 1.6 mile totally dark tunnel. Only our headlamps illuminated a small patch. The arrow points to the light at the end of the tunnel.  

The first section was the coolest. Literally.  The awesome 1.6 mile tunnel was in total darkness and about 35 degrees chilly.  We were prepared with the mandatory headlamps, and suggested jackets.  It was so weird riding along a totally dark environment! Icy cold, dripping water from the roof hit us unexpectedly as we pedaled along seeing only what our headlamps illuminated. We could, however, see our breath, and our fingers and ears were downright cold when we exited into the warm and brilliantly sunny day. We loved it!

The Route of the Hiawatha is truly a beautiful rail-trail. One of the 7 trestles can be seen in the middle of the photo.

Norm enjoying one of the 7 trestles along the Trail of the Hiawatha rail-trail

It was a gorgeous day as we rode along down a gentle grade, over trestles and donned our headlamps 9 more times as we entered each tunnel.  The fact that there was not a scheduled shuttle meant there were hardly any people on the trail at all! Awesome!

We had a relaxing lunch as a young deer hung out with us about 10 feet away, and huge chipmunks darted around snooping for morsels. 



About 5 miles from the end, we met a couple that said at 2PM there was a guy at the bottom waiting to shuttle some people ( that would be us ). As we dilly-dallied along, reading each informative panel we saw, worry began to tease my mind.  Why was he there at 2PM, not 3?  I looked at my fit-bit watch and I was horrified to read the time was 3:25PM!  I thought I remembered the time-zone changing automatically the other day.  Oh NO! Where did the time go?  Are we going to miss the shuttle and have to ride 15 miles UP HILL????  It will be dark! And COLD! I suggested we hurry and get to the end before he leaves.

You ever try taking a selfie while riding a bike?  Yikes!



We finally got to our pick up point, with my sore behind blissfully grateful, and there was NO ONE THERE!  No phones, and absolutely no cell service!  Now the worry came fast to the fore-front.  Was the young girl at the top confused about the time change?  Did we smell too many roses along the way? 

We thought it might be a good time to bask in the sunshine and take a nap just in case we had to make it back up the hill.

 Norm snored softly as my mind raced.  Let’s see, the trail closes at 4:30 and they probably lock the parking lot and our car’s there.  Will they wonder where we are? Will they care? Will we be forced to sleep in it overnight if we ever get there at all? Would they tow it away? It gets dark in the mountains pretty quickly, and OH GOD! The girl said bears like to hang out in the tunnels!!!

My mind was whirling as I planned how to survive this.  There’s a water cooler here - good, it has water in it….. we can fill up again, but I really didn’t bring much food because there was supposed to be SOMEONE HERE!  Ok, we will leave an S.O.S. note in the guest book, maybe someone might look if we head up the trail…….

The minutes ticked by, and it was nearly 4:30 ( somewhere ) I was thinking we had to make a decision.  Stay and risk it getting darker and colder, or start back now. Where did he go? Why did he leave? Were we late? Did he assume we turned around midway and went back? Were we about to join the ranks of those unprepared losers that they need to send a search party out for?

 I was pretty tired and very sure I would have a tough time making it back to the car parked 15  miles uphill.  My butt definitely said “no way”.  The water coolers and guest book there suggested perhaps someone would come to this distant parking lot to pick them up before leaving for the day.  That would be great, but my watch and cell phones said it was quitting time now.  With no cell service I couldn’t Google “ what time is it here”, or call the shuttle service.  Norm insisted his digital watch said the same time as the phones. But they were turned off so how could they change time-zones?  Or did they? UGH!

I never thought I would be happy to see my new bike put in the back of a truck, but it certainly was the case today.  I did, however, grab my jacket and pad it so it would not get scratched.

After nearly an hour, we heard a truck coming, and I was so relieved!!  Saved!! My hero!  I nearly kissed him, but didn’t want to freak this young guy out.  The guy apologized, saying someone got injured and he had to take them back. I wished he had left a note, for goodness sake! 

It took about 45 minutes to make it back up the mountain, driving through some tunnels and very narrow roads that were hugging the cliffs.  The views were terrific as I sat, so thankful to have been picked up, in the back.

The day was lovely overall,  even if it was sprinkled with a lot of apprehension!  I vowed I would never take our emergency equipment out of my backpack ( foil blankets, fire starters, water filter, extra food) again. I learned you can truly go on the easiest, most traveled trail, and still have the potential of getting into serious trouble.  Wasn’t there a reality show about that? “I can’t believe I’m alive” re-enacted people’s drama when they stepped off a trail to take a picture and got left behind by tour groups and spent days in the wilderness dodging forest fires, getting mauled by bears, etc. etc.

It was nearly 8pm when we got back to the campground.  Since we accomplished our main interest in this area, we decided to move on, and add an extra day to our next destination. 

 

Ahhh.... spring is in the air! By tapping the clusters on this pine tree, I assisted nature by setting off the pollen in a cloud.  I miss most of what New England's nature has to offer except the mess of the pine pollen in the spring.  I guess it's the same here in Montana and Idaho.