You can bike through a pitch-black Idaho tunnel and cross into Montana without seeing it

Nine tunnels, seven trestles and one lost town

Somewhere along the Idaho-Montana border, deep in the Bitterroot Mountains, there’s a 15-mile bike trail that used to carry trains from Chicago to the Pacific. The tunnels are still there.

So are the trestles, rising 230 feet above the forest floor.

And somewhere in the middle of the longest tunnel, you cross a state line you can’t see in the dark. The Route of the Hiawatha doesn’t just take you through the mountains.

It takes you through a piece of American railroad history that most people have never heard of.

The railroad that reshaped the Bitterroots

The Milwaukee Road punched its Pacific Extension through these mountains between 1906 and 1909, connecting Chicago to the Pacific Northwest and becoming the last transcontinental railroad built in the United States.

The signature piece of that effort was the St. Paul Pass Tunnel, finished in December 1908 after about two and a half years of drilling through solid rock.

By 1916, the railroad had electrified the whole Bitterroot section, making it one of the longest electrified rail lines in the world at the time.

A boomtown the fire erased

In 1910, a wildfire burned through three million acres of northern Idaho and western Montana in what became known as the Great Fire of 1910.

The boomtown of Taft, which sat near the tunnel’s east portal, burned to the ground. The railroad survived, but the town didn’t.

When you ride past that portal today, the forest has completely reclaimed the land where Taft once stood.

The interpretive signs along the trail fill in the details, but standing at the portal, you mostly just feel the silence.

Step into the Taft Tunnel and lose the light

The ride starts with the longest tunnel on the trail, the St. Paul Pass Tunnel, also called the Taft Tunnel, stretching 8,771 feet through the mountain. That’s 1.66 miles of complete darkness.

No built-in lighting. Water drips from the ceiling, the floor turns to mud in stretches, and the temperature drops fast.

You’ll need a headlight, either rented or your own. At the midpoint, a sign marks the Idaho-Montana state line.

When you come out the other side, a waterfall greets you at the west portal.

Seven trestles take you above the treetops

Once you’re out of the tunnel, the trail opens up and the trestles begin.

Seven steel bridges carry you across forested valleys and creek drainages, some of them a long way up.

The Kelly Creek Trestle stands about 230 feet high and stretches 850 feet across the valley, which makes it the tallest and longest on the trail.

The planks have gaps between them, so you can look straight down to the valley floor as you ride across. From certain points, you can see other trestles ahead of you curving along the mountainside.

Eight more tunnels to get through

After the Taft Tunnel, eight more tunnels break up the ride. The second-longest, Tunnel 22, runs more than 1,500 feet.

Even the shorter ones are long enough to swallow the daylight before you reach the other end.

The walls are rough-hewn rock, cut by hand and machine in the early 1900s, and you can still see the tool marks in places.

Tunnel 23 is closed due to unstable rock, so there’s a bypass around it, but the rest are rideable and each one has its own feel.

A 1,000-foot drop on a trail almost anyone can ride

The trail follows a 1.6 percent downhill grade the whole way, dropping about 1,000 feet over 13 miles from the west portal to the Pearson trailhead.

Because it runs on an old railroad bed, the surface stays firm with few obstacles and no technical sections to navigate. Families bring kids as young as five and six and finish the full route.

Most riders complete the one-way trip in two to three hours with stops for photos. Shuttle buses pick up riders and bikes at the bottom and carry them back up to the starting point.

Elk, deer and black bears share this trail

The trail cuts through the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, and the forest is thick around you for most of the ride. Deer and elk move through the area, and chipmunks are a constant presence at rest stops.

Black bears live in these mountains, so pay attention.

The trestles and a few overlooks give you longer views, with forested peaks stretching in every direction. In late summer, the light turns gold in the afternoons and falls across the valley in long slanted beams.

History signs give the ride a second layer

Every few minutes, a sign appears along the trail covering some piece of the story: the tunnel construction, the Great Fire, the boomtowns, the wildlife, the railroad’s rise and fall.

Benches and pullouts give you places to stop, read, and look around.

You can also find all the sign content on the official website if you’d rather ride straight through and read later.

Either way, by the time you reach the bottom, you’ll know the history of this mountain corridor well enough to explain it to someone else.

A Hall of Fame trail with a Hall of Fame neighbor

In 2010, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy inducted the Route of the Hiawatha into its Hall of Fame, recognizing it for scenic value, historical significance, accessibility, and community impact.

It was honored that year alongside another Idaho trail, the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, a 73-mile paved path through the state’s panhandle.

The two trails connect, so if 15 miles leaves you wanting more, you can keep riding.

The Hall of Fame designation says something about what kind of trail this is, but the tunnels and trestles do a better job of making the case.

Your clock changes somewhere in the dark

Here’s something the trail does that almost no other bike ride in the country can claim: you cross a time zone in the middle of a tunnel. The East Portal trailhead sits in Montana, in Mountain time.

The Taft Tunnel runs under the state line, and when you come out the west portal, you’re in Idaho, which runs on Pacific time. The clock shifts back one hour.

That matters for planning because the trail’s hours run on Pacific time, with gates opening at 8:30 a.m. Most riders start at the East Portal and ride downhill to the Pearson trailhead in Idaho.

What to know before you show up

The trail runs from mid-May through mid-September. Trail passes are required and you can pick them up at Lookout Pass Ski Area or at the trailheads.

Helmets are required by Idaho law for riders under 18, and lights are required for the tunnels. Dogs aren’t allowed on the trail.

Class I e-bikes are welcome, and Class II e-bikes are allowed if the throttle stays disengaged. Lookout Pass is at Exit 0 on Interstate 90 at the Idaho-Montana state line, about 12 miles east of Wallace, Idaho.

Bike rentals, lights, helmets and shuttle tickets are all available there.

Visit the Route of the Hiawatha near Wallace, Idaho

You can plan the whole trip through the official website, which handles trail passes, shuttle tickets, bike rental reservations, and current season dates.

Lookout Pass Ski Area, where rentals and tickets are sold, sits at Exit 0 on Interstate 90 at the Idaho-Montana border, about 12 miles east of Wallace.

Book rentals in advance, especially on summer weekends, because they go fast.

While you’re in the area, Wallace itself sits on the National Register of Historic Places and is worth an hour or two before or after the ride.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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