2 Bikes, 5 States, 10 Trails, 14 Days – Part 4

• Day 8- Drove from Lanesboro, MN to Westby, WI
• Day 9-Rode both trails
• Day 10-Drove to Madrid, Iowa

Wisconsin-Elroy-Sparta State Trail and the 400 State Trail

It was a beautiful drive from Lanesboro, Minnesota to Westby, Wisconsin. The route suggested on Google maps was all backroads and we enjoyed seeing more of the “driftless” area. The Driftless region stretches from southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and into a small corner of northwestern Illinois. Driftless is used in many of the names of businesses and restaurants. It refers to the lack of glacial drift in the region. This region escaped the flattening effects of glacier activity, and is therefore characterized by steep forested ridges and deep river valleys with spring-fed trout steams. It is gorgeous! And best explored by bike on the beautiful bike trails.

We arrived in Westby, Wisconsin, a town with strong Scandinavian heritage, around dinner time. There are Norway flags hanging in every business and on the front porches of many homes. Many signs throughout town display the Norway flag with “Velkommen”. The main street is lined with Velkommen banners.

We easily found the Westby House Inn and checked in. We were not in the main house. There was no vacancy there, but we were in a cottage right beside it. It was cute and comfortable. We even learned that the owner and her husband lived and worked in Paducah, KY (our hometown) for a number of years. They came to the inn for a romantic weekend getaway, and ended up buying it, making a complete career change. She even offered to do our laundry for us when we asked about the location of a laundry mat. That’s the second time on this trip we’ve had that offer. The world is still full of nice people despite what you might hear on the news.Here’s a few snapshots of the guesthouse and the lovely garden area behind.

We walked directly across the street to KOS, (pronounced koose, like moose). It’s Norwegian for cozy meal. It was delicious!

The next morning, we got up and drove to Sparta to take a shuttle from Sparta to the trail closure. Currently, a portion of the Elroy-Sparta State Trail is closed due to a washout. We wanted to ride as much of it as we could and we also wanted to ride as much of the 400 Mile State Trail as possible, so we chose to take a shuttle from Sparta to conserve mileage on our legs.

The shuttle was arranged through Speed’s bike shop. We purchased our trail passes there (required for all Wisconsin trails @ $5 each) and waited for them to load our bikes. We were in a family group of about 6 others, and we all piled into a van pulling the trailer loaded with bikes. The owner’s wife drove us over backroads to Wilton, the furthest open section of trail from Sparta. We unloaded, got a quick picture at the trailhead and started to pedal the 17.5 miles back toward Sparta.

The Elroy-Sparta State Trail is a bucket list trail for many people. And it was for me as well. It is the first rails to trails conversion in the United States. It’s the one that started it all in the Rails to Trails world. Railbanking (a brilliant idea in my opinion) is a voluntary agreement between a railroad and a trail agency to use abandoned rail corridors for other purposes, such as bike trails. The railroad removes the rails (or they’re stored by the trail agency) but leaves the infrastructure such as bridges and depots. Many of these old rail beds are now long narrow state parks. The Elroy-Sparta is the first one of its kind, showing that railbanking really does work. The U.S. has many additional rails to trails now because of the success of the Elroy-Sparta. With 32 miles of trail, 3 impressive tunnels, and 5 small towns connected, it is one of the most popular rail trails in the U.S. It opened in 1967.

The route from Wilton to Sparta was beautiful. With views of beautiful farmland, wildflowers, and little streams.

The tunnels are the showstoppers however. We traveled through two of the three tunnels. Tunnel 2 and 3.

The largest, tunnel 3, is 3/4 of a mile long. We’d read that the tunnels are damp and that water drips from the ceilings. That was an understatement of epic proportion, lol. It actually “rains” in tunnel 3! These tunnels were dug in the 1870’s by hand and by blasting dynamite. When they were digging tunnel 3, the longest at 3/4 mile, they started from each end and met in the middle. When they got near the middle, the workmen accidentally blasted into a natural spring, which rains down from above at a surprising rate to this day. It was hard to hear ourselves talk over the sound of the rainfall (or “springfall”) it was so heavy. There are also waterfalls on the walls of the tunnel that feed the streams that flow along each side of the tunnel.

The tunnels entrances are framed by huge wooden doors. During the railroad’s heyday, 6 passenger trains and 40-50 freight trains would use this route every day. These massive doors were closed by tunnel watchmen at least 50 times during the course of a day from November to mid-March to prevent freezing in the tunnels and protect the stonework from crumbling by the freezing/thawing action. A tunnel watchman was also responsible for preventing collisions between eastbound and westbound trains, working a 12 hour shift. There’s one little watchman’s shack remaining. It is pictured below. To stop a train, they’d hang a red flag or red light on their shack. If it were safe to proceed through the tunnels, a white flag or light would be visible on the shack.

The sunshine felt great after coming out of that cold, wet tunnel. The temperature in the tunnel ranges between 50-60 degrees regardless of the temperature outside.

We continued our ride to Sparta, crossing I-90 on a bike bridge right before we arrived back at Speed’s bike shop where our car was parked. We loaded up and drove into the pretty little town of Sparta and ate lunch at Jenny’s Cupboard. It’s a vintage downtown sandwich shop with a real working soda fountain. It was very busy and delicious!

From there, we rode to Elroy where the 400 State Trail connects with the Elroy-Sparta to explore that area. The 400 State Trail is not as popular as the Elroy-Sparta, but it was beautiful. We rode a good distance on the 400 State Trail and I took several more pictures. The 400 State Trail is used by snowmobiles during the winter months, and is named for the passenger train that traveled the 400 miles between Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul in 400 minutes.

We got off the trail just in time to get cleaned up and drive to Viroqua, to eat at the Driftless Cafe. We enjoyed our pizza and are looking forward to travelling to Iowa tomorrow!