East Portal Trailhead, Hiawatha Trail System — Attraction in Wallace

Fun family friendly ride. Supper lame that you have to pay for the shuttle even if you don’t use it on the weekends. We showed up at 4:30 on a Friday and they made our family of 7 pay $270 to ride on the trail even though the last shuttle had already parked and there was hardly anyone on the trail. Weekdays they don’t charge if you don’t use the shuttle. Pro Tip… if you want to go on the weekend, wait until after 5:00pm when they have packed everything up and can’t take your money. You will have the trail to yourself and it’s prettier in the evening. The trail has a very gentle slope. My 9 year old easily rode out and back without even complaining. The best scenery, bridges, and tunnels are in the first 10 miles so just turn around after 10 miles and ride back and save yourself the money. Worth stopping for but probably not worth the ridiculous charge for the shuttle unless you can only ride a...

This was worth the trip!!!! We parked at the bottom of the Hiawatha trail, we were one of 3 other people that parked at the bottom in a parking lot that would hold maybe 15 vehicles. We wanted to bike up it first so we'd have the reward of the downhill afterwards. The youngest in our group was 7, none of us had ebikes and we made it to the top in about 3 hours, which included many stops to appreciate the view and read info signs on the history of the trail (well worth the stops to read!) Highly recommend buying good bike lights, we had cheap junk ones, and they did nothing to illuminate our path, which is CRITICAL in the blacker than black 1.6mile tunnel!! The 1.6 mile tunnel is always wet on the inside, so be prepared to be mucky!

Also, the grade is never more than 2%... be brave and plan to bike it both ways....

Such a fun trip and family-friendly! It's super easy biking but you can't use a road bike. Kids can handle this if they've biked before and have good attitudes. Probably takes 3-4 hours on average for groups to casually ride. The tunnels and trestles are exciting, and the scenic views are incredible. The shuttle back to the start from the end is about 40 minutes long, then you have to bike back through the first tunnel to get back to your car. Very easy to get to the trailhead; no special vehicle needed. There is a section that the shuttle buses share the trail with bikes, so be careful in those areas. Please do not feed the wildlife (deer, squirrels). Wear your helmet; I saw a handful of people carrying their helmets but not wearing one which is incredibly dumb and a risk to...