For a few years I had wished to visit Avery, Id. and perhaps hike some of the old grade up toward St.Paul Pass. Over labor day weekend we did a side trip only to discover what has been posted above about the yard. This was a disappointment for sure, but the old Avery depot which houses a small museum along with the pass. car outside with displays was worth the drive.
I had not done any research on the area so it was a complete surprise that the road above Avery toward StPaul Pass is on the ROW and as I recall we passed through 5 tunnels and over one former rr. bridge. This was pretty neat. What took me by the biggest surprise however was that the upper part of the grade has become a mountain bike Mecca. We parked and started hiking up the grade that is not open to vehicles and began to feel a bit out of place as everyone and there were certainly 100's of people were all on bikes with less than a dozen exceptions all coming down grade at us. We'd gone about 3/4 mile when we were stopped by a USFS person on a bike who wanted to know where our pass was to be on the trail and where was our helmets and lights. We had not bothered to read signs that were presumably posted discreetly of these requirements. He said we could pay the fee to him and he could let us sign waivers about the helmets and lights as we were walking anyway. I was ready to turn around in disgust but my wife wanted to walk so we paid $20 so we could continue and signed ourselves into bondage with the USFS. Well we continued to hike up grade and went about 3 1/2 miles before turning back due to the time of day getting late. During the course of the 7 mile hike we were stopped by no less than 4 additional USFS bike mounted people and asked to explain our existence on their trail. So I post this as a word or warning if any other rail fan travelers who like to hike old grades get the notion to hike this, think again, or better yet bring a mtn. bike.