Fat bike to Tekoa

Tekoa? What is that? 

For those of you that do not know, Tekoa is a small town on the Palouse, that is just at the end of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. (This trail is a rail-trail that follows the old Milwaukee Road rail road corridor. It is most well known  for developed the portion west of the Columbia River, but extends all the way from the eastern edge of Seattle to the Idaho border. It continues on into Idaho and eventually meets up with the Hiawatha Trail, but I do not know if you can ride the whole way.

 

Today being a wonderful fall day and perhaps one of the last, I decided to take the FatBike our for an adventure on this trail. It was a bit of challenge to find a starting point going west from Tekoa, but after getting out the phone and finding the directions on the RailLink app, I found the junction of Lone Pine Rd and Campbell Rd, which really is a junction with a wheat field. I headed west from there and what initially appeared to be a gravel surface for access to the wheat fields quickly turned into an abandoned rail cut with tall grass.

                                         

Surprisingly there were apple trees of several different varieties (I tasted as many as I could reach) growing in several spots along the cut.

 Were these remnants of what once were orchards or wild trees from apple cores thrown from the trains over the years it was an active line?

I got bored of this and headed back to the car to check out the route heading east from Tekoa.

This route leaves from the north side of Tekoa on Washington St. It runs straight through prime wheat country.

This bit is all dirt/gravel lane as it is access for the farmers to their field.

It was a beautiful fall day. I may have missed the peak of colors, but it was still pretty good.

Officially the route ends at the ID state line, but it appears that the trail continues on. That is left for another day.

Selfie of my riding companion in her front pack and me.