![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Today I drove 54 miles with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vixyish, corivax and plantae to walk 4.6 miles underground. The Snoqualmie Tunnel, part of the Iron Horse trail, is 2.3 miles of decommissioned railroad tunnel. Inside is a lot of dark, cold, and wet. And horse manure, which is particularly annoying given the dark part.
The entrance is a short walk from the parking lot. Walking under the arch into the darkness is sobering. This was the last thing we saw heading into the tunnel, soon replaced with this.
It is, of course, quite dark inside. We brought plenty of flashlights, all of which were used at first. But as the entrance disappeared around a corner, leaving only a keyhole of light from the exit ahead, we gradually turned off all but one by some unspoken agreement. The thought of being stuck in there with dead batteries was hanging pretty heavily over us. Getting used to following a small patch of bouncing. yellowish light took some time. We eventually fell into a nice rhythm, walking mostly in silence, occasionally stopping to look at anything that caught our eyes. After that much nothing, pretty much anything did.
A bit after the midpoint we started to hear an odd rumbling up ahead. After the obligatory jokes about sleeping dragons, we decided that it was horses. As it got closer, we started to think it might be a wagon. At this point we could see by their lights that they had stopped. There is something very primeval about being under a mountain, at least a mile from help in either direction, wondering what the clanking noise up ahead is. A voice called out to us, asking if we were pedestrians or cyclists. It explained that we needed to keep our flashlights pointed at the ground as we passed, so we wouldn't spook the horses. Carefully approaching, we saw a large wagon with several passengers, drawn by two horses. Behind it were another four horses, each with a rider. All were dressed in slightly exaggeratedly historical western garb. The man explained that the horses were from France, the kind that used to carry knights. He kept up a constant stream of verbiage as we carefully edged by them. They started up again and rode off, the clopping and talking slowly fading into the darkness. In just about every way, it was one of the more fictional moment of my life.
The other side is just more trail, with various odd bits of rail debris scattered around. Nothing else to do, we turned around and walked back.
I'd really like to bike up there some day. The greater Iron Horse trail system is a popular destination for Seattle area cyclists. A lot of the pages I've found talking about it mention cyclists going through the tunnel without headlights, which seems pretty insane to me. However, walking through without lights could be interesting. Particularly if you enforce the whole 'don't look back' thing...
vixyish, corivax and plantae to walk 4.6 miles underground. The Snoqualmie Tunnel, part of the Iron Horse trail, is 2.3 miles of decommissioned railroad tunnel. Inside is a lot of dark, cold, and wet. And horse manure, which is particularly annoying given the dark part.
The entrance is a short walk from the parking lot. Walking under the arch into the darkness is sobering. This was the last thing we saw heading into the tunnel, soon replaced with this.
It is, of course, quite dark inside. We brought plenty of flashlights, all of which were used at first. But as the entrance disappeared around a corner, leaving only a keyhole of light from the exit ahead, we gradually turned off all but one by some unspoken agreement. The thought of being stuck in there with dead batteries was hanging pretty heavily over us. Getting used to following a small patch of bouncing. yellowish light took some time. We eventually fell into a nice rhythm, walking mostly in silence, occasionally stopping to look at anything that caught our eyes. After that much nothing, pretty much anything did.
A bit after the midpoint we started to hear an odd rumbling up ahead. After the obligatory jokes about sleeping dragons, we decided that it was horses. As it got closer, we started to think it might be a wagon. At this point we could see by their lights that they had stopped. There is something very primeval about being under a mountain, at least a mile from help in either direction, wondering what the clanking noise up ahead is. A voice called out to us, asking if we were pedestrians or cyclists. It explained that we needed to keep our flashlights pointed at the ground as we passed, so we wouldn't spook the horses. Carefully approaching, we saw a large wagon with several passengers, drawn by two horses. Behind it were another four horses, each with a rider. All were dressed in slightly exaggeratedly historical western garb. The man explained that the horses were from France, the kind that used to carry knights. He kept up a constant stream of verbiage as we carefully edged by them. They started up again and rode off, the clopping and talking slowly fading into the darkness. In just about every way, it was one of the more fictional moment of my life.
The other side is just more trail, with various odd bits of rail debris scattered around. Nothing else to do, we turned around and walked back.
I'd really like to bike up there some day. The greater Iron Horse trail system is a popular destination for Seattle area cyclists. A lot of the pages I've found talking about it mention cyclists going through the tunnel without headlights, which seems pretty insane to me. However, walking through without lights could be interesting. Particularly if you enforce the whole 'don't look back' thing...
This might spoil the mood, but...
I wasn't in on the unspoken agreement. The thought of being stuck in there with dead batteries went through my head exactly once and then ceased to hang over or anywhere near it, heavily or otherwise. I did notice that you were clicking yours on and off (and the thought occurred to me that you once told me that wears things out faster, actually) but my main thought was that *I* damn sure wasn't going to be walking through there without a flashlight in my hand. When you guys mostly didn't have yours on, I didn't think much of it; I just figured you had decided you could see just fine by mine.
But then, for the most part I was just bouncing along and having a good time. :)