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Iron Horse Trail: Old railroad bed traverses scenic deserts, canyons, forests
By GREG JOHNSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
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The trail, which climbs Snoqualmie Pass and spans the Cascade Range from the western foothills east to the upper Columbia River, travels from typically cool and wet up and over snowy peaks to warm and dry. (See map.)
You can ride a horse or bike through dense evergreen forests or wide-open desert, walk through dark concrete tunnels or rimrock-lined river canyons. You'll see sword ferns and maybe a salamander on the west side, sagebrush and maybe a rattlesnake on the east side.
You also can travel 105 miles through time, past deserted railroad depots and way stations, a pioneer grist mill, crumbling homestead barns and vacant pastures.
Following the bed of the defunct Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad -- known as "the Milwaukee Road" -- the Iron Horse State Park Trail is also the spine of the recreation corridor known as the Mountains-to-Sound Greenway.
"You've got high trestles crossing steep ravines, the mountains, the tunnel at the pass, and then you hit the sunny weather on the east side and the changing vegetation," says Ken Konigsmark, projects director of the non-profit Mountains-to-Sound Greenway Trust.
"We call it our backbone trail."
Abandoned by the bankrupt railroad in 1980 and acquired by the state between 1981 and 1984, the Iron Horse is now perhaps the state's premier "rail trail." It is open for non-motorized recreation and managed by the State Parks and Recreation Commission, which has made great strides in providing facilities for the hikers, bikers, horse riders, cross-country skiers, rock climbers and dog mushers who play on it daily.
Several trailheads and parking areas have been built to provide access to the trail, the finest being the Hyak trailhead at Snoqualmie Pass, complete with restrooms and showers.
Several blockages in the trail have been repaired, including a washed-out high railroad trestle at Hull Creek and a damaged bridge over the Yakima River near Lake Easton -- those two projects alone cost $1.5 million.
An informative brochure and map have been published by state parks. In the next year, five camping areas along the trail will be built.
And a determined Parks and Recreation Commission has fended off repeated challenges to the trail by powerful forces.
These include the U.S. Army, which fights mock battles on its Yakima Firing Range, through which the eastern leg of the trail passes. A couple of years ago, the Army announced it was taking the trail and would build a new one closer to Interstate 90. But in the face of a determined charge by trail backers, the Army decided it didn't need the trail.
Olympic Pipe Line Co. wanted to use much of the trail for a new cross-Cascades oilpipe. But earlier this year, a day after a showdown with the commission, the company's existing line blew up in a fatal inferno at Bellingham, and the cross-Cascades plan was dropped.
Another railroad, Burlington Northern, is still considering grabbing a chunk of the trail to link with its new line over nearby Stampede Pass.
"A linear piece of land like this is very valuable, for telecommunications, transportation, recreation," says Brian Hovis, state parks planner."All these uses are competing. But in the last two or three years, all our plans are coming to fruition."
Bicycling is the most popular type of recreation on the Iron Horse because of its wide, packed-gravel surface and minimal grade, never greater than 2.2 percent.
The Iron Horse is suitable for any rider with a bike that can go off pavement. It is perfect for families with older kids, ideal for casual mountain bikers and a great trail for fat-tire warriors to burn miles.
"I get up to Iron Horse more often than you might think," says John Zilly of Seattle, a regular rider and mountain-bike guidebook writer. "It's pretty scenic and on a rainy day, or when some of the higher trails are snowed in or when we just don't feel like single-track, it's fun to get out and put in some miles."
There are several distinct legs of the trail and the most peculiar part is the 2.3-mile Snoqualmie Tunnel, built in 1914.
From May 1 to Oct. 31 (big icicles hang the ceiling in winter) you can ride or walk through the tunnel. You'll need a flashlight; headlamps are best for riders because they leave your hands free.
It is cold, dark, wet and unnerving at first, and most cyclists wobble uncertainly into this big spooky void. But once your eyes adjust to the flashlight beam and you spot this tiny keyhole of light at the other end, you can peddle briskly.
It's a strange sensation, sort of like pedaling into the portal of hell. But gradually the light becomes larger and you emerge exhilarated.
The most popular stretch of the trail is the 39 miles between Hyak and the western terminus at Rattlesnake Lake, where a major new trailhead will be built next year -- existing facilities at the lake suffice for now.
It is a fine ride through fir and hemlock forests and past interesting rock pitches, often crawling with climbers, over several high trestles and into the mountains.
The big negatives of the western leg are that you can usually see and always hear the buzz of busy Interstate 90, and clearcuts pock the surrounding hills and mountains.
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This leg follows the pretty river's riffles and pools east and was the first part of the railroad to become trail. It is known as the John Wayne Pioneer Trail, after the horse-riding group that pushed for it.
It passes from pine forests to a dry corridor of open country lined by basalt columns and outcroppings and includes the 320-foot Thorp Tunnel.
Unfortunately, much of this stretch is closed spring through summer because of liability concerns. An irrigation canal parallels the trail on a hill above, and it has a history of landslides. The state attorney general's office has been working on a solution with the flume's operator -- the Kittitas Reclamation District -- for three years.
State sources say the issue might be resolved by next spring. But right now the canal is dry and the stretch is open, and it is at its loveliest in fall.
The far eastern leg of the trail is the wildest. It dips from the rangelands around Ellensburg into the isolated, rocky and sage-covered scrublands of the Army firing range, in spring a riot of wildflowers and year-round a home to abundant wildlife.
"The firing range stretch is pretty spectacular because it's unspoiled," says Russ Cahill of Olympia, who walked all 105 miles of the trail in 1990."We saw spectacular wildlife: baby owls nesting in the old railroad cuts, coyotes, mule deer, lots of game birds like pheasants and quail."
The tread in that stretch has not been upgraded to trail standard, however. It's sandy and most appropriate for walkers and horse riders.
Cahill, who helped negotiate the purchase of the rail line while a state Department of Natural Resources administrator, took 32 days to walk the whole Iron Horse.
"It just fascinated me, the idea of a trail that goes through all the different parts of the state."
Iron Horse informationFor a free brochure on the Iron Horse State Park Trail, or updates on trail conditions, call State Parks' toll-free information line, 800-233-0321.Some information on the park is also available on the agency's Web site at: www.parks.wa.gov For historical information, see the Milwaukee Road Historical Association Web site at: www.mrha.com |
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