Image: Jesse/adobe stock
What’s long, straight, and cuts through the countryside? Once upon a time, it was railroad tracks. But as trains took a backseat to air travel in the twentieth century (thanks, Boeing), those stretches have increasingly become something else: bike trails.
More than 25,000 miles of rail-to-trail conversions cross the country, at least a little in every state. One of the first, Seattle’s own Burke-Gilman Trail, inspired the boom that came in the 1980s, says Brandi Horton of the national Rails to Trails Conservancy. In 1983, the U.S. government actually pushed trail formation, not because it wanted to promote cycling but because the process served as “railbanking,” a way to hold on to old routes until they could be used for trains again in the future. Railfans of the world are still holding their breath.
In 2019, the Conservancy launched plans for the ambitious Great American Rail-Trail, a 3,700-mile route that would stretch, appropriately, from Washington, D.C., to Washington state. The multiuse trail will welcome bikers and pedestrians but also horseback riders, skaters, and cross-country skiers. It’ll be decades before it’s complete, although the project is more than 50 percent of the way done now, and the Olympic Peninsula has taken its western terminus status seriously.
Beyond being mostly flat, former railways offer geographic diversity for cyclists. The rail towns that served the old trains, both passenger and freight, are hungry for visitors. “Trails have brought economic energy back to the community after the railroad left,” Horton says. Plus, there’s the inherent appeal of recycling old infrastructure, making something out of what technology left behind.
Yelm-Rainier-Tenino Trail
15 miles | Yelm → Tenino
The all-paved Thurston County route delivers a smooth ride, connecting several small towns south of Puget Sound. The area is lush, if not particularly wild; the trail passes wetlands, green belts, and placid McIntosh Lake. Both the start and the end offer food options, and Tenino’s unique rock quarry public swimming spot is open during the hottest months. About halfway through, the trail intersects the Chehalis Western Trail, whose 22 miles go all the way to Olympia.
Image: George Ostertag/Alamy Stock
Willapa Hills Trail
56 miles | Chehalis → South Bend
A trip through this section of Southwest Washington is a lesson in industry; the trail crosses farms, passes a sawmill, and finally meets the point where the Willapa River pours into the oyster-rich Willapa Bay. The east and west ends are both paved, but in between the surface can vary; it crosses several towns, with even more scenic trestle crossings over various rivers and streams. A midway stop at Rainbow Falls State Park on the Chehalis River offers swimming.
Image: Jesse/adobe stock
Olympic Discovery Trail
130 miles | Port Townsend → La Push
Like the Great American Rail-Trail—of which it is a part—the Olympics route is a work in progress, currently almost 70 percent complete as it cuts across the top of the Olympic Peninsula. The trail offers plenty of variety, including old steel bridges, a look into the Elwha River Gorge, and stretches of tall evergreens that create forest canyons. At times the trail abuts the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But the scenic highlight might be along Lake Crescent, where it meanders along the northern, quieter side of the Olympic National Park lake. The final western part of the route is mostly on rural state highways, but the western end makes a spectacular finish with a short, separated stretch through Quileute tribal land.
Klickitat Trail
31 miles | Lyle → Warwick
Shoulder seasons are ideal to pedal this route that launches north from the Columbia River, because the last portion through Swale Canyon is closed in summer for fire safety reasons (and to protect the young steelhead there). Flowers bloom in spring, but so do tick populations; temperatures calm down in fall. The unpaved path traces the Klickitat River, through state park and Forest Service lands, taking in the scrubby landscape of Eastern Washington. Thanks to a trestle washout halfway through, it requires an extra few miles of on-the-road detour.
Published in the The Innovation Issue issue of Seattle Met.
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