Named after the train that ran from Chicago-Minneapolis-Seattle, this bike route is a 15 mile ride that literally takes you from a starting point in Montana to your end point in Idaho.  It's a rails-to-trail line that drops down into the valley and passes though a kagillion tunnels and crosses over as many tresels deep in the Bitterroot Mountains.  The first tunnel which immediately starts the ride is about 1.8 miles.  But there's a catch.  The Lookout Pass ski area runs access to the trail and charges $9 to use the trail per person as well as provide a $9 bus ride back to the top if you don't want to ride back up it.  Plus you need a mountain bike w/ at least 700x35 tires and a helmet/headlight.  They have rentals at the top for those who just want to show up but you get what you get when you arrive there.  My wife and I decided to rent from a top bicycle rental shop for the day.

To access the trail, one needs to drive 15 miles east on I-90 out of historical Wallace, Idaho, over Lookout Pass (which is the Idaho/Montana state line) and take Exit 5 or the Taft exit.  Then you must drive for 2 miles on a forest road to the trail head.  My wife and I opted to get the return trip back up the mountain because honestly we couldn't wait to get off the gravel and return to the paved CDA Trail.  So for the 2 of us, it cost about $20 for two trail passes, about $20 for two return trips, and about $65 for 2 Trek mountain bike rentals from the LBS for the day.

It set us back about a $100 for the two of us.  Was it worth it?  I dunno.  We had a great day out in the mountains and forests.  We got some great photos.  But it was pretty damn dusty, there were a lot of lemmings on the trail, and the surface was pretty bad as you worked your way to the end (Pearson trailhead).  The Route of the Hiawatha was one of the main reasons we returned to the Silver Valley in the Northern Idaho Panhandle.  We're glad we did it.  But I doubt we'll ever do it again.  As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't paved, I don't get to excited about riding it.  There are many more rides in Montana on their highways I'd like to do -- and it's free and w/o dust.

Once again I'm not narrating the photos.  Takes too long and you get the idea anyway.  Feel free to ask questions.