Idaho trails featured in latest Everytrail guides

The Trail of the Couer d' Alenes, a paved path that runs for 72 miles from the backwoods of northern Idaho to the shores of beautiful Lake Couer d' Alene is one of two featured trails on both Everytrail and trailsnet.com.

Bikers rest outside one of ten tunnels
 found along the Route of the Hiawatha
  bicycle trail in northern Idaho.

This trail is famous for it's perfectly sloped grade and smooth surface. It is ideal for inline skating, recumbent cycles, bikes, and Trikkes. If your idea of a good time is bumping and bouncing over tree roots, rocks, and ruts or constantly avoiding deadly encounters with cars, then you might not like this trail. But For the rest of us, the Trail of the Couer d' Alenes is paradise on earth.

The other trail featured this month is the Route of the Hiawatha, another great northern Idaho trail. It is not paved, like the Couer d' alene trail, but it has some of the greatest trail tunnels and trestles anywhere in the world. It is also rife with wildlife, history, and bodacious scenery.

Visit trailsnet and Everytrail to view these two great Idaho trails and start planning your trail trip today.

Idaho trails featured in latest Everytrail guides

The Route of the Hiawatha: an Idaho Classic

So how did this crazy obsession for bike trails begin?

It may have been my early biking years, but since that involved a major concussion at an early age, it seems like that would be a good starting point.

How about the high school bike trip along the Kootenai & Yaak Rivers in Montana? It was fun, but... Naaaahhh!!

I think my first Rails-to-Trails experience on the Route of the Hiawatha Bike Trail in Idaho was what nailed it. My daughter was only a year old and we met my dad in either Missoula, MT or Wallace, ID to begin the journey. All those tunnels and trestles were a revelation to me. How can a bike trail be so incredibly awesome? My daughter, for her part, loved the tunnels but wasn't such a big fan of the rest of the trail.

We did the same trail a few years later with the same cast of characters plus a few more. My dad loved the historical narratives along the way. I still loved the wide open spaces of the trail and the closed-in spaces of the tunnel. My daughter still loved the tunnels but thought the historical narratives were boring.

But we all enjoyed our time together. We made memories, we got exercise, we relished the fresh air and waterfalls. Those and so many other benefits make rail-trails such a worthwhile and unique experience.

For more information about northern Idaho's Route of the Hiawatha Bike Trail visit trailsnet.com.

The Route of the Hiawatha: an Idaho Classic