Hiawatha Trail

We drove from West Glacier to Kalispell for one night and then on to Missoula, MT. More beautiful country! Someone told us "Missoula is the Austin of Montana" - a university town, music and the arts and we would add traffic! A couple of "down" days with full hook-ups for laundry etc. Roger got the car washed!

We drove west to the Idaho/Montana border today and rode the Hiawatha Rail to Trail bike path. What an experience! You ride 15 miles downhill and a shuttle takes you back to the top - my kind of biking! It is in mountain country - the scenery is panoramic and gorgeous. We rode through 8 tunnels and over 7 high trestle bridges. The first tunnel was 2 miles long - dark, cold, wet and scary! We had to rent lights to put on our handle bars - next time I'll bring a big spotlight and duct tape it to my bike! The trail is gravel and bumpy - more like mountain biking - and we were covered with dust when we finished but, what fun!

Roger had a flat tire soon after we exited the big tunnel - so glad it did not happen in the dark! He changed the tube and pumped it up with a CO2 inflator and it went flat again a short time later. Thought we were doomed but, would you believe the "Trail Marshall" came by and helped him fix the valve core and pump it up again. The bike gods were with us because it was fine the rest of the way. We were really worried we would end up walking either back up or down!