I meant to go out for an easier ride and I have had this one in mind for one of the mornings I didn’t want to have to worry about the ride itself. A little bit of distance, a little bit of adventure, but also a little easier. Or so I thought.

I could go on and on about the history of the Iron Horse / John Wayne trail up Snoqualmie Pass. It at one time was the Milwaukee Road Railroad grade from Seattle to points East. The only major freight and passenger route to be electric powered and in its time. As well as supposedly one of the most scenic routes over the mountains. Now it is a smooth, finely crushed limestone trail that spans the entire state. I only planned to ride the Western most 22 miles of it up and through the tunnel. Then once on the other side, climb as far as I could up into the ski area hoping to breakfast at an alpine lake.

I knew I had quite a few miles to cover, so I started early, 4:45 AM, in the dark. The path up the pass isn’t hard, but the two percent grade for 18 miles can get old pretty fast. That is until you start hitting the giant curved railroad trestles that span high above creeks below. 100 year old marvels of engineering, suspending me hundreds of feet in the air, to watch the sky change color as the sun lifts behind the mountains.

The climb is a grind, and if I push it takes a little over an hour. The sting fades in intervals as I cross the bridges, sneak under an old snow shed and view the Granite Peak Fire Lookout from the other side of the valley. One and a half miles from the tunnel, a trail sign, like the red kite in the Tour De France, tells me I am just about to the best part of the trip.

The Snoqualmie Tunnel, built from 1912 to 1914 is just over two and a half miles long. It travels through the mountain side over 1’000 feet below the peak above it. It is colder, wetter and darker than any other place on the mountain. At the mid point, if you turn around, the West portal is just a pin prick of light with no sight of the East portal hidden behind a bend. It takes a pretty powerful light to see much of anything.

A thick fog grew as I approached the East portal and my headlight acted like high beams on a car. Visibility was cut way down and the cold wet air was being sucked through and out in front of me faster than I could ride. When I finally popped back out into the daylight, fog was pouring from the portal as if there was a steam train following me through. Magical.

I wound my way up and through the sleepy ski town of Hyak. Hairpinning from asphalt to dirt up the mountain under ski lifts and past trail markers posted high above my head anticipating the coming snow. Road after road thwarted my efforts of finding the lake, dead set on keeping me from “trespassing” on federal forest land. I finally called it quits, stopping on the road and having a snack while watching the sun finally make its way over the tops of the adjacent mountains.

The trip down is even better than riding up. That ever so slight grade that I fought up, with a little bit of a tempo styled effort, makes for a pretty fast trip down. I stopped for a few pictures with some of the old relics of the railroad and hit it back towards the city for the work day. What I set out on, thinking would be easy, ended up being long with a solid amount of effort laid into it. All the components for a great ride.