The Covid Files #4 Rides of Isolation Ishmael on The Cinder Path

Chariton trailhead.

It was the weekend again.  Saturday.  God bless Saturday!  But weekends here especially in nice weather bring out large numbers of trail users.  During the pandemic this is dangerous.  Asymptomatic runners, dog walkers, families and cyclists filling the air with invisible virus infection that everyone who encounter those deadly clouds of exhale breath...  This day we flee the city to social distance ourselves.  Our destination: The Cinder Path.  Chariton to Humeston, Iowa.

This would be our second visit to this trail.  Our first was during the 2016 edition of Ragbrai.  We started at the southern terminus, Humeston back then.  Looked like a great idea at the time.  Leave the 20,000 Ragbrai people behind and cut up north toward home on a trail we never explored before.  Sure, its surface is crushed rock but we have ridden many miles of gravel roads this week.  Besides, loaded touring bikes absorb the bumps.  We got a little over 3 miles before turning off and catching Highway 65.  A beautiful highway with 4' wide paved shoulder and on that day a trail wind!  It felt like the bikes were turbo charged.  Our problem with The Cinder Path was that most trail maintenance is done with a lawnmower.  Grass surface.  Rail ties had not been removed and some holes in them were visible.  All this reduced our speed to 5 mph.  The real issue was that we were on the wrong bicycles.  This was fatbike or MTB territory.  Once on the pavement we never looked back.  That adventure and my thoughts on the trail can be found Ragbrai-2016  But to be fair, we only rode the last 3 miles of the trail on overloaded touring bikes.

The Cinder Path

This is the first rails-to-trails conversion in the state of Iowa.  The trail was the former BC&Q rail road line built in 1872 that ran from Chariton, Iowa, to St Joseph, Missouri, and abandoned in 1974 and purchased by Lucas County Conservation Board the trail is about 16 miles long.  Mile markers are posted every .5 mile.  Our Cateye Velo 9 computer was suggesting that the signs were off a little bit on the short side.  Sources have varying mileage for the trail, anywhere for 13 to 16.  The surface is cinders and crushed limestone.  The name comes from the original surface material, cinders.  The trail is very beautiful and scenic.  There are 16 wooden bridges and a covered bridge as the trail flirts with the Chariton River and various creeks and such.  A 20' lookout tower exists or existed but we never saw it.

Our Second Time On The Cinder Path: Hit The North!

Bridge Challenge accepted.  

At Chariton.  This is the safest bridge.  A few have railings that are only knee high.  One lacked railings altogether.

As noted earlier, it is Saturday and a nice Saturday so a big day on metro trails and parks.  For some reason this trail comes to mind.  It cannot possibly be busy, can it?  Too far away from Des Moines.  I have never heard anyone talk about this trail unless I brought it up.  The consensus of those few conversations is that the Chariton end of the trail is good.  Load the tandem up inside the Honda CR-V and drive down Highway 65/69 and take a left at Highway 34.  Mostly a wonderful drive through Warren County.  We love Warren County.  Spent a lot of time back in the 1990s bicycling these empty paved roads.

The trailhead in Chariton is noted by a sign on 34.  Veer left and there it is.  Empty.  Assemble the tandem and take off.  It begins with a wooden bridge and signs telling us to dismount and walk the bike over.  Uneven surface.  Challenge accepted!  This bridge was the best bridge in terms of condition and design of the 16 we crossed.  We ride over every bridge.

The surface is good.  A bit soft from recent rain and snow.  To correct our mistake from 2016 we ride our practically empty touring tandem sans front bags and with MTB tires at a lower pressure.  The same bike we rode for the Rolling Prairie Trail.  Carried only the essentials: tire repair and the jackets, gloves, headbands that we took off.  Keep it light.  Food would be obtained in Humeston at a Casey's.  No quarter in Derby, Iowa, but Humeston would be another 4 or 5 miles.  4 Larabars and three water bottles.  The tandem rolled quite nicely.

One of the coolest shelters in Iowa.

Walk the plank!!

I just love Iowa green in the morning sun during Spring.

First impression: What a beautiful trail!  Hidden and forgotten gem it is!  Local treasure!!  Surface be damned!  Something about the morning sun making the green flora so pretty.  We really like to hit this in the autumn.  Stunning.  Creeks and the Chariton River flowing just off the trail.  Benches and shelters for the first miles.  Our favorite is a shelter that is only accessible via a wooden  timber.  And then a covered bridge just around 6 or 7 miles into it.  After that bridge benches and shelters become scarce.

Over the Chariton River.  Signs posted at the intersections before and after this bridge stating that the bridge is closed.  Yes, it needs work and probably is not structurally safe and once again we accepted the challenge and risk.

Mary looking out the missing panel section.

The view of the river from inside the covered bridge.

All Lost After Derby

Once again I lost all sense of direction as we entered Derby 2 or 3 miles past the covered bridge.  My failure from inadequately studying the map.  The trail is generally a north to south trail but enters this town from the east.  Once in the city the trail disappears near the intersection of Stacy and Front Street.  Thinking that we were heading south I took a right and then a left on Front and headed to Highway 65.  From what I recalled from the map, the trail intersects 65 therefore by taking the highway we would intercept the trail.. Good in theory but I took another right and headed north.  After a mile and half we stopped to consult the map.  I was noon so the sun's position was of no use.  We entered "data roaming" Iowa so Google Maps were useless.  Perhaps the fact we were heading into the wind should have been a sign.  The wind was strong from the north today.  Perhaps the sign that read Princeton, MO, going the other way should have been the clue but I dismissed that.  OK retrace the steps.  Pay for the same real estate twice.  Soon enough we see a "bike crossing" sign on 420 St.  There's the trail.  3 mile mistake.  On the way back Mary noted that we should have turned left on 150th St inside Derby.

The Grassy Path

Just south of Derby, or east.  Trail quality dives...

The Last shelter.  This gem we missed in 2016, not that our team would have wanted to stop as we just refueled in Humeston and were wanting on a better surface.

The last mile or two was beautiful albeit a bit grassy.

Photo credit Mary.

Trail conditions take a dive after Derby.  The surfaces makes a transformation to a grass path.  By the time it reaches Humeston it is almost golf course quality.  Mostly between the two towns it is "the rough."  Two miles or so from Derby a shelter emerges.  It looks to be an original from 1975 and had been ignored for decades.  Yet there is a table and an opportunity to rest.  By now we have been riding in granny up front.  Had our Stimulus check been twice as large I would have suggested to Mary that we need a fatbike tandem.  But we had about 3 miles left and the surface would improve to a nicer lawn quality.  Perhaps we should have lowered the air pressure of our tires or had used 26x2.5 tires but we did not.  My arms were getting abused and our speed was nil.  The trail was beautiful and we had the option of rocketing up Highway 65 back to Derby.  Relief was soon in sight as we reached the trailhead.

The backwards sign.

CDC approved activity!

I have never seen this style on a trail before.

The Humeston trailhead is marked by a large structure holding a sign that read 'CINDER PATH."  That sign was backwards and a review of a 2016 photo shows it in the proper orientation.  Another sign indicates that the trail is 5 miles long, Lucas County section is 3.5 miles, and is funded in part from the CDC.  I guess we were following CDC guidelines.  Also of note is an ancient REAP (Resource Enhancement and Protection) sign.

I captured the Iowa flag in this.  What great fortune!

Visible from here is the restored rail depot and a wooden water tower, the last one in Iowa.  Also a campground and a M-60 Patton tank.  Ride to the tank and turn left on Front St (notice that a lot of the towns down here have Front Street as a main drag) and a Casey's General Store is off to the right.  Hoping to score a slice of pizza and Gatorade here we discovered that they had toilet paper and hand sanitizer, both the gel form and the Foundry's liquid style.  No one gave us grief for being outsiders possibly spreading the covid virus.  4 minute wait on pizza so we opted for Little Debbie triple stacked oatmeal pies as lunch.  That was the right thing to do as we noticed people were sitting in their vehicles waiting for pizza.  Casey's pizza is a big treat for small town folk even more so when all the local restaurants are closed because of the pandemic.  I'm willing to bet that no one in any of the small towns we have ridden through has had the dreaded illness.  Plenty of pizza in Des Moines.

The Ride Back

Front St is actually highway 65 so we stayed on it.  Mary had been counting cars and trucks on the way down, a good stoker duty, when the highway paralleled the trail and said roll for it.  We could ride over twice as fast into a strong headwind than we could on the trail from Humeston to Derby.  6 miles anyway with 4' shoulder.  Turning onto the trail at 420 St we completed the section of trail we missed earlier.  Unfortunately, this bit required us to lift the bike over fallen trees.  Here we encountered the first trail user. An elderly man apparently mushroom hunting.

On the way down we did not encounter a single soul.  Now we were seeing trail users.  From the highway we saw a person walking and later a van full of people stopped at a trail intersection.  I think a kid had to get out a relieve a bladder.  Leaving Derby we saw two girls walking to Derby while adjusting their iPods or phones music selection.

After passing the covered bridge we came across a family of four.  Two boys on BMX bikes and their mother and father.  Later two families walking together with lots of children.  3 young men on MTBs heading south and probably a family or two until we reached the end.  Nice to see this trail being appreciated and used by locals.  My son's GF's family lives outside Chariton and he and Kayla have often walked the trail.

A stack of rail ties.  We saw a few of these withing 5 miles of Chariton.

It was on the way back that we noticed the lack of rail road remnants on the trail.  I recall one whistle crossing sign.  At the end there is a rail road crossing sign but I am not sure how genuine it is.  Occasional discarded rail structures can be found on the side of the trail.  Piles of rail ties stacked up neatly near Chariton are also present.  But compare to many rail-to-trails we have ridden this is is not much.  Perhaps the ever present water on the sides of the trail is the reason.

Battle Damage

Look at the magnet.  First time I have ever seen a magnet holding a piece of broken spoke.

We did not get away without a problem.  Minor issues of being tired and dusty.  Right arm hurting from keeping the bike upright on the rough miles.  Legs sore, too.  But this problem only revealed itself after we made it home.  When I reassembled the bike to put it away until the next outing, I noted a piece of metal on the computer magnet.  Strange.  Closer inspection revealed that the object was the hub end of a spoke.  Further inspection discovered that it came from a spoke on the front wheel.  Bummer.  Now how did that happen.  Most likely it was not the rough section south of Derby.  Within the first five miles or so there was a fresh line of white limestone spanning the width of the trail.  On the way down I just stared at it wondering why it was there and then Wham! we hit it.  It was used to fill a hole across the trail.  Note to self:  Avoid this bad bump.  And as luck would have it I spotted the same patch in the trail on the way back.  Weird, this does not match the trail surface WHAM!  Crap that bump AGAIN!  Note to self: if the trail section changes color in a thin section of trail use caution...

Will We Return

Yes.  We conquered this trail.  Knocked down that brick wall.  I don't know about south of Derby unless on a fatty.  We think an autumn excursion would be wonderful from the Chariton end.  Of course a Spring will likely be scheduled.  Getting a motel room in Chariton is a option if libations are involved.

The back of the trail monument.  Nice to put a name and a face to someone that worked/works to keep these trails in good condition.