Shooting the "Duke": John Wayne Pioneer Trail is summer's perfect pedal

By Mike McQuaide
Special to The Seattle Times

JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Biker Noah Young enjoys the smooth downhill ride along the John Wayne Pioneer Trail.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Other links Map: John Wayne Pioneer Trail (537K PDF) Sign up for Outdoors e-mail NWsource: Outdoors

We're riding the John Wayne Pioneer Trail, the old Milwaukee Road rail trail that parallels Interstate 90 east of North Bend. Right now, we're about 45 miles east of downtown Seattle. The lower reaches of a forested ridge encroach on our left, but directly ahead majestic McClellan Butte reaches high for the sky, its lopsided, craggy peak leaning to the right as if pointing our way to the Snoqualmie Valley.

On our right, the skyline ridge that connects Mailbox Peak to Mount Defiance and Bandera Mountain to Granite Mountain rises 4,000 feet above the South Fork Snoqualmie River Valley. It looks like an impenetrable wall — like something out of the "Lord of the Two Towers Returning Ring" movies perhaps — that, save for a few bald and bare spots, has been overlaid with evergreen furries and fuzzies.

Below in the valley, mostly out of earshot, cars and trucks chug up and down I-90, their drivers and passengers enclosed in steel and glass miniprisons, the poor suckers. We eight bike riders, on the other hand, can feel the wind in our faces, the sun's warmth on our skin, and the gentle bumpity-bumpity-bump of the dirt and stone under our mountain-bike tires.

And on this one-way, east-to-west ride, it's all downhill. We pedal hard for 30 seconds, and, if we want, we can pretty much coast for the next five minutes.

"This is the life; this is just fantastic," says rider Robbin Goldfoos of Maple Valley. "This, right here, beats all."

He's got that right.

	JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Fellow bicyclist Andy Shirey and the scenery are reflected in the sunglasses of Noah Young.

Along the path of history

This John Wayne Pioneer Trail, the centerpiece of Iron Horse State Park, follows a 110-mile stretch of the old Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, known informally as the Milwaukee Road. The trail is named after the Duke because, according to an interpretive sign near the Hyak trailhead, Wayne "symbolizes for many the positive spirit of the West."

Trains first started making their way via this line in 1908; it was the last built of the transcontinental railroads. Nine years later, however, it became the first electrified transcontinental railway in the country. In the 1930s and '40s, the Milwaukee Road Snow Train took passengers from Seattle to the Snoqualmie Ski Bowl, an early ski area. It was a two-hour trip from Seattle, 2-1/2 from Tacoma.

In 1980, when the railroad company filed for bankruptcy, the state of Washington began acquiring bits and pieces of the old railroad bed. Four years later, the state opened the first sections to the public for recreational use.

	JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bicyclist Scott Vinson watches climbers Kevin (right) and Kelly Rinehart (climbing) of Steilacoom, Pierce County, as he takes the downhill ride on John Wayne Pioneer Trail.

Eventually, plans are for the John Wayne to link up with the 132-mile Columbia Plateau Trail from East Pasco to Cheney, and the Spokane River Centennial Trail, which extends across the border to Idaho's Centennial Trail. A rider, or hiker or equestrian, will be able to hop on the trail at Rattlesnake Lake — or farther west if you add connections such as the Upper Snoqualmie Valley Trail — and ride or hike all the way to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

But today, we're content with Hyak to Rattlesnake Lake.

Light at the end of a tunnel

Earlier this morning, we met with our bikes at the Rattlesnake Lake parking lot. After working out the intricacies of doing a car shuttle so that we'd only have to ride one way, we then loaded up the vehicles and headed for the Hyak trailhead parking lot on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass. Once there, we'd pedal and coast the 23 miles from Hyak, elevation 2,600, back to Rattlesnake Lake at 900 feet.

Though it's a beautiful sunny day, once we're at Hyak and begin riding, things get dark quick. Real dark. Real quick.

Just a few hundred yards west of the Hyak trailhead is the Snoqualmie Tunnel — 2.3 miles long and as pitch dark as a moonless, starless, midwinter night. In a cave. Nearly as cold, too. It's in the mid-80s outside, but in the tunnel it's got to be 30 degrees cooler. And there's a stiff breeze blowing out. At the far end, a white pinprick of light — the light at the end of the tunnel, as it were — is the west entrance and our immediate destination.

	JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bikers and hikers have to use lights to pass through the 2.3-mile Snoqualmie Tunnel along the John Wayne Pioneer Trail.

"It's pretty freaky riding in there," says Vashon Island's Michael DeBlasi, who's ridden the tunnel a few times before. "You're pedaling and pedaling in the dark, and you feel like you're getting vertigo."

You half expect a sign that reads "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" above the black hole's opening. Luckily, we all remembered our lights, and once inside, our eight headlamps or handlebar-mounted beams illuminate the tunnel for about 30 yards in front of us. We light up each other, too, and the sensation is of hitching a ride on a glowing cloud of light that's passing through the tunnel.

A little ways in, there's "Ooh!"-ing, "Ahhh!"-ing, "Eeek!"-ing, and chilled laughter from the riders in front of me. Before I get into that, however, let me say this about my fellow pedalers: Most of them are racers for Seattle's First Rate Mortgage cycling team (riders Curt Tiederman and Scott Vinson co-own First Rate) and are body-fat-free folks in their 30s and 40s with burly, smooth-shaven legs that are freakishly muscular. They look like Charles Atlases flipped upside-down.

That said, as we pedal through the tunnel and they're splashed by the icy water that drips and sometimes gushes through the tunnel's ceiling cracks — the Summit at Snoqualmie Ski Area is directly above the tunnel — they squeal like 10-year-old girls running through a sprinkler on a hot day. Not me though. (I'm too scared of the dark.)

About halfway through the tunnel — though there's really no way to gauge your progress other than by the far-off pinprick of light that gradually grows larger — shouts of "Train! Train coming!" make their way back to DeBlasi and me. Ha, ha, we laugh, there hasn't been a train through here in 25 years. But the shouts are a shorthand warning for bike riders coming the other way. At the last moment, we veer off to the right, avoiding collision with a chain of four lights passing by us in the opposite direction. (We almost became things that went bump in the nightlike darkness.)

	JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bicyclist Noah Young takes in the mountainous view from atop one of the trestles along the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. Several trestles along the route offer glimpses into steep ravines.

A really nice grade

After 10 minutes or so we emerge from the tunnel — which itself has a slight downhill grade — and the outside world seems painfully bright.

"That was so cool!" says Seattle's Andy Shirey.

"Cold, too," adds Paul Clement of Bellingham, who, like everyone here except me, wears bike shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. "I was just about starting to freeze when we popped out."

"The walls are nasty," says Noah Young, holding up a hand black with soot. He had brushed it along the tunnel wall as we rode through.

Here are some logistical tips if you'd like to try the downhill ride on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. Doing the car-shuttle shuffle To make our ride a one-way excursion, we met at the Rattlesnake Lake parking lot, loaded bikes and riders into vehicles and drove over Snoqualmie Pass to the Hyak trailhead. To get to Rattlesnake Lake: From Interstate 90 east of North Bend, take Exit 32. Go south on 436th Avenue Southeast, which becomes Cedar Falls Road Southeast. The first of several Rattlesnake Lake parking lots (no fee) is about 2.9 miles from I-90. There is a John Wayne Trail/Iron Horse State Park parking lot just up the road from Rattlesnake Lake; parking costs $5. To get to the Hyak trailhead: From Interstate 90 just east of Snoqualmie Pass, take Exit 54. At the end of the exit ramp, take a right and then a quick left onto Spur 906. (Follow signs for Snoqualmie Tunnel.) Go right in 0.5 miles; the Hyak Trailhead parking lot is just ahead. There is a $5 day-use fee for parking at Hyak. Tunnel travel Built between 1912 and 1914 (as the dates just above the tunnel's east entrance inform), the Snoqualmie Tunnel doors remain open from about May through October, depending on snow level. It's closed the rest of the year because of the giant icicles that form inside during the cold weather months, which could injure trail users. If you plan on riding the tunnel, always take a headlamp or handlebar-mounted bike light with extra batteries. Because the tunnel is chilly even on the hottest days of the year, pack a jacket.

Then we're off. The gradual, 1,700-foot drop on the way to Rattlesnake Lake is perfect for keeping your momentum going at a good pace, while at the same time not so speed-inducing that you're holding on for dear life or missing the scenery, of which there's plenty.

"It's a really nice grade," comments Seattle's J.J. Ecker. "It's gradual enough that you could bring a date on it and have a really nice time."

Along with views skyward to ridges and mountains — including, if you squint hard enough, the lookout on top of Granite Mountain — several trestles along the route offer views down into steep ravines. Thankfully, chest-high guardrails keep one from riding down into said ravines. Most of these bridges are covered with pink ballast rock that is about as easy to pedal through as knee-deep mud. Watching fellow riders swerve and wobble like drunks on bikes while negotiating the ballast makes for more than a few laughs.

Just across the rebuilt Hall Creek trestle (the sign erroneously reads Hull Creek), we chat with rock climbers spidering their way up the walls at the popular Exit 38 climbing area. Olallie State Park is down in the valley to our right, and back on our bikes, we pass a trail that accesses the spectacular Upper Twin Falls.

Pedaling on, we pass mileage markers with numbers such as 2122 that indicate the distance back to Chicago, a throwback from the railway's heyday. Earlier we passed signs for places like Garcia and Bandera — the sites of former train stops — and when we come to the sign for Cedar Falls, we know we've pretty much come to the end of the line.

Where the trail runs into Cedar Falls Road, we stop and split into two groups — riders heading back to Hyak via the John Wayne, thus making for a 46-mile roundtrip, and others, like me, heading to Rattlesnake Lake where they'll share car rides back to Hyak to pick up their vehicles.

"Next week, we can all do the Cascade Tunnel near Stevens Pass," jokes Clement, referring to a railway that's still in use.

"We might have to dodge a few trains, though."

Mike McQuaide is a Bellingham freelance writer and author of "Day Hikes! North Cascades" (Sasquatch Books).

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More travel/outdoors headlines...