Rails to Trails bike paths are the best! Mostly flat, these trails typically go for miles and have lots of parking options and access points. That means you can have an easy stroll, long distance bike ride, or anything in between.

From the moment I read about the Ashton Tetonia trail I knew this was a ride our family needed to do. What makes it so spectacular is the historic train trestles you can bike across. The views from the top of these trestles and along the trail out to the Tetons is pretty epic.

Prefer video? Click below to see the route our family suggests for this bike ride.

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Rails To Trails in Teton Valley

The Ashton Tetonia Trail was completed in 2010. Following an old Union Pacific rail route that was built in 1912, this trail is almost 30 miles long!

The path is packed gravel so make sure the bike you have is appropriate for this. We put our two kids into a bike trailer rather than having them bike themselves since they were still so young.

There was a lot of dust coming up from the path so we were all a bit dirty by the time we finished the bike ride.

For the best views, start from the northern end of the trail and head south. While this is technically the uphill direction, because it’s an old rail line the grade is gradual and that means heading back you’ll have a slight downhill. You will also have views of Grand Teton almost the whole way.

To do this we started our ride on the Ashton Tetonia trail from Marysville.

Another bonus from starting on the north end is that two of the three historic train trestles are in the upper half of this trail. Standing over 100 feet above the rivers below, riding over these rail bridges really adds to the experience. The three rail trestles are:

They are each over 600′ long, but the Conant Creek trestle is the longest one at a whopping 672 feet long.

Wild Weather

Keep in mind the weather out here is unpredictable. On top of that, much of the Ashton Tetonia trail is pretty exposed. It might be wise to start your day a bit earlier than we did. Your best bet is to just keep an eye on the forecast.

Summer thunderstorms are a common in the mountains. Knowing that a long distance ride with would take our family all day, we thought we chose the perfect day for it. However, even with the best plans things don’t always go as planned.

We ended up getting stuck in a thunderstorm and had to find a place to wait it out for a while. After that we decided to turn around, though on a nice day we would have continued further on to Tetonia.

Don’t let that deter you though. Because this ride is really worth the effort!

Where Next?

The Ashton Tetonia trail is one of the 5 top things we recommend in the West Tetons also including seeing the area waterfalls, getting the best views of Grand Teton from the top of Grand Targhee resort, hiking to one of the coolest cave entrances, and floating down the Teton River.

Whichever you choose to do next you can’t go wrong!

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