The Palouse offers many opportunities from beautiful scenery to multiple trails to explore the outdoor environment. One of these opportunities is the Bill Chipman Palouse Trail that goes from Pullman to Moscow.
The Bill Chipman Palouse Trail is a trail that spans 7.1 miles from Moscow to Pullman, Washington. On the trail, people are able to partake in many activities, including biking, inline skating, fishing, horseback riding, walking and cross country skiing.
The Outdoor Program at the University of Idaho hosted a road ride event on Oct. 8 where participants went on an evening bike ride on the Bill Chipman Trail. Unlike other events, the bike rides allow more participants that can range anywhere from four to 10 people and sometimes even a bit more.
“We have the ability to take a few more folks on these bike rides because there’s no travel,” Trevor Fulton, director of the Outdoor Program, said. “We leave from the Student Recreation Center, and we come back. We have some safety protocols in place where we’re asking participants to bring facial coverings in case we group up part way along the trail, but when you’re riding your bike we’re spread out so we can go in a larger group.”
The road ride will focus primarily on riding the trails rather than teaching students how to ride. Students will be able to grasp knowledge about the trail they are riding on if they wish to come back and ride the trail on their own. The Outdoor Program has offered two bike rides, a mountain bike ride and a gravel grind bike ride, where participants were able to ride bikes on different terrains
For the road ride, participants will be riding on asphalt following the trail. Two Outdoor Program staff members will go on the trip with the rest of the riders being students. For this trip, the road ride had four total participants as they enjoyed a bike ride through the Bill Chipman Trail. This ride was completed days after the weather harshened, and it had started to become rainy. Sandra Townsend, Outdoor Program coordinator, said that the wind made the ride a bit more difficult but became smoother when returning to Moscow since they got a tailwind on the way back.
Participants were able to see the grizzly bears in Pullman and overall the ride was a success even with the weather being much cooler over in Pullman.
On the road ride, participants were able enjoy the scenery as they all rode through the Palouse.
“The Palouse is spectacular,” Townsend said. “You are definitely going to see wildlife, and it’s very spectacular especially going to fall right now with the leaves changing, it’s beautiful. We call them moments of appreciation. If we see a spectacular sunset, we’re not going to ride past it.”
On the bike rides, Townsend has seen a mixture of people participating with differing abilities across the board.
“They’re definitely not competitive and that’s not the point of the rides at all,” Townsend said. “It’s about getting to know other people, the point of these rides is to identify one or two other folks who ride at your pace, and who you enjoy riding with. Ideally, as much as I want them to come on our rides again, they can go out with the folks they meet on our rides, and they don’t need to go through our program anymore. They can just talk with themselves and organize their own rides which is awesome. I love that.”
Armin Mesinovic can be reached [email protected] on Twitter @arminmesinovic.