A trail, a trestle, a tunnel

OK, I confess. I'm a bit of an Internet geek. (That's probably no surprise to you, with the whole blog-and-website-about-the-canoe-trip thing.) But of all the goodies available on what my aunt refers to as the World Wide Waste-of-time, none captivates me like Google Maps. Interactive, zoomable maps with satellite photo overlays - sweet bliss.

See, I'm a bit of a map geek, too. I love poring over catrographs of, well, just about anything, and wondering what the landscape looks like right about there.

Google Maps were exciting enough, but Google had to go and up the ante with Google Earth. You're probably heard of it...it's a free downloadable program that shows you the Earth in three dimensions. Satellite photos, elevation data, "click this dot to see a photo of this place" - it's a wonder I ever get off the computer. (Jenni often drags me.)

One of my more pervasive habits is looking up places I know, and go to frequently, to see what might be worth exploring around them. A lake? A trail? A leftover relic of history?

That's exactly how I "discovered" Sportsman's Island.

But the island wasn't the only curiosity I've sought out. I've skied at Spirit Mountain in Duluth a few times. While carving up the slopes at the far end of the ski area, on more than one occasion I've noticed what appeared to be a flat, one-lane road cutting off from the slope and into the woods. Mountain biking on old logging railroad grades near the Gunflint Trail led me to suspect it might be a railroad grade. But cutting across a ski slope?

A few months ago, I pulled up Google Earth and zoomed into Spirit Mountain to see what I could find. The grade was easy to pick out. In the summertime image, it was a line of gravel transversing the mountain. As I zoomed out, I could see that it ran perpendicular to the slope of Duluth's big hill for several miles. North of Spirit Mountain, it soon entered an industrial area of the city - a telltale sign of a railroad grade.

On the other side of Spirit Mountain, the grade continued southwest, cutting along the hill about halfway up. It ran generally parallel to the Willard Munger State Trail, but seemed to promise better views. And it looked bike-friendly.

I traced all the way back to I-35. Nearby, it met up with active railroad tracks. A railroad grade indeed! But one thing was peculiar: about two-thirds of the way along the grade, it abruptly ended at a prominent rock outcrop, and continued again on the far side.

A tunnel? Could it possibly be a tunnel?

Looking for confirmation, I pulled up Microsoft Live Maps with its "Bird's eye" view. Not satellite photos, this is an actual mosaic of aerial photos from perspective angles. Coverage is spotty, but Duluth was one of the cities with these views. Spirit Mountain was an easy find, and I picked up the grade's dirt line and followed it southwest. Halfway to where I thought the tunnel should be, I shouted with surprise: Spanning a deep, narrow ravine was a large metal railroad trestle!

Tracing the grade further southwest, I saw now that it threaded several impressive rock cuts before, sure enough, ending at a rock wall with a dark opening. There it was, in all its glory: the tunnel.

A trestle and a tunnel! I thought these kinds of things only existed out west.

I had to see it. I had to mountain bike it. I showed my discovery to Jenni, who was thankfully interested in checking it out. (She accused me of having some kind of "abandoned railroad fetish," but whatever.)

The question was when?

As it would turn out, sooner than we thought.

In the interest of quasi-shorter blog posts, TO BE CONTINUED...