Kettle Valley Rail Trail Day 1:
Penticton to Chute Lake – 41.5 Km
It felt a little odd checking out of the hotel and doing our last minute packing without a vehicle on Thursday morning and leaving the parking lot on a bike. It was a beautiful sunny day, though, and we were excited that this was it – we were finally starting The Trek.
Vanderhoof to Penticton
We left Vanderhoof on Tuesday morning and travelled down through Cache Creek, turning east towards Logan Lake on Highway 97C. The road goes through an interesting part of the province and I don’t think I’d been here before. There are a number of very large copper mines on that route, along with their astonishingly large tailings pond beside the highway. Just along the road, and up a rough track under the power lines sits Gump Lake rec site where we spent the night.
After arriving in Penticton on Wednesday morning, we checked in a little early to our hotel and began sorting out gear. Leroy was to continue on to Grand Forks that day to leave the truck with his friend and I would be staying with the girls and all the bike trek gear until he got back in the evening. We managed to wedge all of it in the hotel room (barely) and he drove off. I’ll admit I was really hoping there was nothing we forgot. The kids and I spent the day walking around the waterfront and enjoying the beach – Pentiction is really quite beautiful to visit. When Leroy returned we meandered down to the old Sicamous paddle-wheeler on display at the west edge of town, though of course all the tours were finished for the day. Too bad I hadn’t visited earlier – not only was the old steamer an important part of the world of the operating Kettle Valley Railway, it also now houses the model Kettle Valley Railway. Oh well, some things you just don’t know about until later.
In the morning, we set the kids to eating some scones in the hotel room and got to setting up the trailers and lashing down gear. Leroy took most of the gear, I had the kids. I also got some of the last minute things stuck in the back pocket of the Wike trailer. And then we were off. The trail was supposed to start just down the road from the hotel somewhere a long the waterfront. At least that was how it looked on the maps. We cruised the waterfront and got some pictures of the start before coming to a dead end at the marina. Some friendly people informed us that the trail actually started further up on Vancouver St – and pointed up a hill with an incline of about 10°. What a way to start! After wrestling our rigs up to the trail head we got out of the traffic and onto the rail grade that was to be our path for the next four days.
Penticton to Naramata
The Penticton to Naramata stretch of the trail winds its way through the orchards and vineyards along the east shore of Okanagan Lake at a relatively mild and constant incline as it climbs up into the forests of Ponderosa pine in the hills. Penticton maintains the trail as far as the Little Tunnel 17 km up the trail, and no motorized vehicles are allowed here, so the trail was in great shape. The first 7 km or so are marked out, likely for the many locals we saw using it for their morning walks and rides. After that, the distances revert to the KVR mile posts that go on as far as Chute Lake. We got out of the busiest part of the trail before stopping for a welcome breakfast scone break provided by our friends in Grand Forks. The interesting thing about such a slight grade on a loaded bike is that it always looks like its about to level out, but of course it doesn’t. I kept thinking as we worked our way up I may not be going all that fast, but I doubt the old loaded old steam train was going much faster. Nevertheless, by lunchtime we made it up to the Little Tunnel. We stopped to take in the scenery, let the kids out, and appreciate the 400m we had climbed so far. It really is an impressive spot on the trail, perched at the edge of the cliff and overlooking the whole of Okanagan Lake. It is also accessible from several parking lots and shorter trails in the area which makes it a busy spot on the trail and we didn’t stay too long before moving on. A little further along we encountered our first cattle guard and the trail obviously became one less travelled. We stopped for a lunch of home-made energy bars – what became our go-to lunch for most of the trip as it was easily grabbed from Leroy’s panniers. The first switchback and the halfway point for the day was almost in sight.
There are two switch backs on the way to Chute lake. The first turn takes you further into the forest and away from the view into Rock Ovens Park. When the KVR was being built, the workers food was cooked in rock ovens – made literally out of neatly piled rocks. There are 13 rock ovens, a few have been restored more recently, but most date from the early 1900’s. Leroy hiked out to one and got some pictures, but by this point we were starting to realize that we were getting tired and the day was getting on. We still had another 14 km to go. So we refilled our water supplies from a nearby creek with our Katadyn water filter system and got going again. It’s amazing how much you can drink on a trip like this! I was happy it was only a warm May day instead of the stereotypical Okanagan summer heat.
Most of the other travellers we met were going the other way and I was beginning to see why. A 2% grade isn’t much, but when you add on the drag of a full trailer and stretch the hill over 40km it is quite the slog. We did meet up with another uphill traveller – sans trailer – who came up behind us. He was aiming to bike the whole of the Trans-Canada Trail all the way to Newfoundland by October. He had started in Victoria several weeks earlier and was happy to be on the rail grade instead of the highway. He kept pace with Leroy for a while chatting and then went on ahead. I kept my lookout for each mile marker and any sign of the Adra Tunnel, our second turn.
The Adra tunnel is one of those parts of the original KVR that warrants some mention. It is nearly 500 m long and carves a 270 degree curve within the mountain, though most of it is currently unavailable to view. It took 16 months for the men to build just the tunnel – removing the rock with hand tools and carts. Along with the Othello Tunnels outside of Hope and the Myra Canyon trestles we would see the next day, the Adra Tunnel is a remarkable bit of engineering. If you are interested in a little more of the history, there’s an interesting article from 2018 here. It has partially collapsed now, and all the books and information I had seen before the trek said access to the tunnel was completely blocked off for safety concerns. A sandy bypass path now cuts directly from the lower level of the grade to the upper one. After struggling to get a footing and push my bike up the path, I told Anna and Alice they would have to walk this one and unloaded my trailer. Leroy didn’t have this luxury, but he still beat me up the hill. We were surprised to find a small sign at the top stating that the first 100m of the tunnel were open and took the time to do some exploring. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures (I was busy trying to convince Anna that it was okay to come in with me after she had seen some rocks on the floor and was sure one was going to fall on us – pretty smart thinking for a four year old) but it does feature in Leroy’s video of our trip.
On to Chute Lake
The trail beyond this point showed obvious signs of ATV use. The grade became loose and sandy along the two wheel tracks and was very hard going. I began pushing my bike when I needed a break from pedaling, then hopping back on when I got tired of that and needed a break from walking. The sand sucked at the tires, especially the smaller ones on Leroy’s heavy pack trailer, and the Wike trailer hitch kept bashing into the back of my leg. There were 11 km left once we left the tunnel, and I’m sure we were both pushing our bikes for at least half of it. Needless to say, we don’t have a lot of photos from this section of the trail.
Afternoon was rolling into evening and we realized that we were going to need dinner before we got to Chute lake. The kids were happy to get out and run around, we were happy to sit for a few minutes while the water boiled. One TrailFare meal for each of us and one shared out into bowls for the kids. Everyone picked what they wanted – Leroy had Chili, the kids love their Stroganoff, and I chose Chicken Stew.
We finally rolled into Chute lake at 8pm, 11 hours after leaving the hotel. The clouds were starting to roll in and we were expecting rain that night. There seemed to be a lot of people camping for such a small, remote site on a Thursday in May. Even more disconcerting was the growing realization that there didn’t appear to be any empty spots. Thankfully, the Trans-Canada Trail trekker we had met earlier spotted us, realized our plight, and offered to share his spot with us. He had arrived several hours earlier before the site was full. A school group from Kelowna had made a trek in the other direction, through the Myra Canyon, as part of a graduation trip. They were continuing down to Penticton the next day.
The crowded nature of the site wasn’t exactly what we were hoping to end the day with but it didn’t really matter. I’m not sure if its possible to describe how tired we both were. We set up the tent and beds, put all our gear either in the Wike trailer or under the tent vestibules, and crawled in. Day one. I was thinking. Three more to go. The worst of the uphill was over.