Located 45 minutes into Idaho is a forgotten sight that many see only a glimpse of. Towering at a minimum of 250 feet above the ground, the trestles of an old railroad bridge extend itself over 150 miles of the Camas Prairie hills. From the roadside, one can only see the minimal structures peeking through the evergreens. But, once you venture along the tracks a few miles, the vast structures grow in height and length.
This adventure captured the eye of my friend Jesse who shared the exploration with the rest of us. Before we knew it, Saturday had rolled around and the hangovers had kicked in full force, but we were not about to miss out on this one. On our way out of Pullman, we stopped to nourish our bodies with the delectable McDonalds and set out on our journey.
Once we got on the road, we had ventured across the border and down into Lewiston. The paper mill was in full force, but the smell didn’t stop us from enjoying the views that this town had to offer. We eventually rolled into the small cul-de-sac of a town called Shebang, where we parked the car in a church parking lot and gathered up our backpacks.
The train tracks we had been told to start walking on were literally right in front of us and we all got the impression that this “hike” wasn’t going to be too hard. Little did we know, we had about six miles of blackberry bushes, swamplands and burrs to face. We didn’t even make it 15 minutes down the track before an old train appeared to be stationed there since the railroad closed down in November of 2000. We climbed to the top thinking we would be able to make the rest of the trek across the tops of the carts, but when we finally hoisted ourselves up there, we were very wrong. These old train carts had been hauling coal and were left empty along the railroad for lord knows how long.
As we continued on switching from one side of the train to the other, we couldn’t seem to avoid the nasty terrain on each side. We climbed to the top of the trains every so often to see when the train would end, and we there wasn’t an end in sight. We had hiked along for 3 hours before we finally decided to cut across and find the main road and make the walk back to the car. Per usual, we got back to the car in less time than it had taken us to get to our turning point. Just in time too, because it had started to rain.
Luckily, being the kind of people we were, everyone was still laughing and having a good time. There was no giving up just yet either. We hopped in the car and drove up past our turning point and continued on until we started to see glimpses of the bridge. The look on everyone’s face when we finally saw a significant part of the bridge was great. Everyone got hyped and started pulling out their camera’s while Devon was hanging out of the car window with his GoPro.
We pulled off the road and made a steep climb to the top of the bridge. Through the burrs, blackberry bushes and more, we were all too excited to have finally made it. After wrecking our way through the marshy landscape, we braved our fears and walked out onto the wooden trestles of this century-old railroad bridge. While one of us stayed off the tracks completely (Remi) others were hanging off the sides for some of the sickest pictures I’ve ever seen.
All in all, we finally made it. I wouldn’t say we got lost, but we definitely didn’t know where we were going. I walked away with too many burrs on my clothes to count, and way too many hilarious memories to forget.
