September 21, 2024
Sep 21 - Trail of the Couer d’Alenes I
We’ve heard about, read about, and watched many videos about this Hall of Fame Rail Trail. The stories are all correct!
We started our multi-day exploration of the Trail of the Couer d’Alenes in Harrison towards the western side of the trail. This section starts by following the shoreline of Couer a’Alene Lake for the first 8 miles and then you begin a slow but gentle ascent to the small town of Plummer. The first section was a good amount of cycling traffic as well as families out for an adventure. The second half only had the more “serious” cyclists who were looking for a long, gentle climb. The return was a 7 mile descent on which I never pedaled followed by the lakeside ride. When we got back to Harrison, we opted to keep going for another 5 miles and we were almost all alone as the day was getting a bit late and folks were done.
It is hard to describe how special this trail is. It is well maintained and an obvious pride to the community and it looks like it is well used too. We did see one mule deer doe with a fawn, another separate doe, one coyote who was running ahead of us for a hundred yards, and then we topped off the ride with a bull moose who was watching us almost as much as we were watching him.
Tomorrow we will continue our exploration of this trail but from the eastern end.
Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 7,911 miles (12,732 km)
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2 months ago