John Wayne Pioneer trail

October 5, and weather in the Northwest Corner remains beautiful.  Seattle's official high was 68, but in the bright sun it seemed warmer.

Jim B. was in town, arriving last night for a visit with me and with members of his family scattered about the State of Washington.   Jim grew up on Mercer Island, and attended the University of Washington, where I met him.  But he has spent decades as an engineering professor at Purdue in Indiana.  So he returned not as a tourist, but as a Northwesterner revisiting his roots.

To remind him of how we spend time in these parts, we went on a reasonably long but easy hike on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail.  The John Wayne trail begins from a point near North Bend, Washington, and runs some 300 miles eastward to the Idaho border.  It uses the former right of way of the Milwaukee Road ("Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad"), a legendary transcontinental railroad that ran from Chicago to the Northwest (with 2¼ miles burrowing under the summit of the Cascades)  from 1909 to 1980. In 1980, the portions of track through Washington, Idaho, and Montana were abandoned, following bankruptcy.  

The elite passenger streamliner, the Olympian Hiawatha, which competed on the Chicago to Seattle run with the Great Northern's Empire Builder and the Northern Pacific's North Coast Limited, had already been dropped from service by 1961.

What remains -- with track removed -- is the graded route, complete with trestles and tunnels.  It makes excellent biking and hiking.

Jim and I drove to Interstate 90's exit 47, where we parked at the trailhead for Annette Lake.  We hiked on the narrow, winding, and often steep Annette Lake trail for about 0.7 miles, at which point we intersected the John Wayne.  We headed westward through tunnels of forest, past views of alpine peaks and colorful fall foliage, through a snow shed, and over a steampunk-esque iron trestle, aiming for the McClellan Butte trail that intersected the John Wayne as it came up from I-90's exit 42.

The hike was easy but long, and the shadows were growing longer when we decided to turn back shortly before reaching our destination.  My phone's pedometer showed we still had about a half a mile to go, but we found a sunny spot along the trail, ate candy bars and drank water, and declared victory.  By the time we returned to the Annette Lake trail once more, that heavily-shaded approach trail was dark and gloomy.

We logged a total of 12.2 miles by the time we returned to our car.

We were tired, but hardly gloomy.  The John Wayne is a great trail for walking and catching up with a friend whom one rarely has a chance to see.  It would also be a great place to introduce hiking novices to the pleasures of walking -- but perhaps for a shorter walk as their first-time experience.

I understand the right of way was accepted by the legislature with a provision for reversion, should the route ever be needed again for rail service.  Maybe a new generation of Hiawathas will one day roar out of the Cascade tunnel and down the slope to Puget Sound.  Meanwhile -- a real boon to hikers.