Kettle Valley Rail Trail Day 2:
Through the Myra Canyon – 46 km
Packing Up – Chute Lake
The first night on the trail brought rain. We’d been expecting it, but I as I listened to it pattering on the tent in the dark, I couldn’t remember if I had shut the windows on the Wike trailer. I tried to put aside the visions of the kids seats and all the stowed gear being soaked and get some sleep. It wasn’t as if I could do anything about it anyways – if the windows were open, the stuff was already wet.
In the morning the rain had stopped, though everything was wet. Leroy got the stove and the kettle out to make coffee and rehydrate our Scrambled Eggs. I got the kids dressed and got started packing a few things in the tent before coming out for some hot coffee. Trans-Canada fellow had long since gotten up and eaten already and was reading a book on one side of the picnic table. The high school students were getting themselves in order and packed their gear into the vehicles that would meet them in Penticton. At last, quiet came to the campsite as the last of the chase cars left.
As I helped the kids with their bowls of eggs, we got to talking with our campsite-mate. He had some more detailed maps that showed the grades on the trail ahead – relatively flat today, thank goodness. The school group had told him of another few kilometres of sand to come before the trail improved. We mused that perhaps the night’s rain might make the sand more compact and so not quite as bad as what we had encountered the day before. We talked about our business for a bit and gave him some of our meals in thanks for sharing his spot. After hearing about his dinner of assorted old vegetables that needed using up the night before, I suspect he appreciated the Chili later in his trip.
Discussion turned to packing up – we had now all given up that anything would be dry-ish before putting it in bags, so I said, “Well, at least its not raining now.” Famous last words. Not two minutes later it started to sprinkle with the tell-tale signs of settling in. We put the kids in the Wike trailer with their blankets, coats, and some other gear and closed all the windows in an effort to keep them dry when the rain came in earnest. Leroy worked at getting gear into assorted dry bags then passed it all out of the tent for me to stuff in the Burley trailer. The sky dispensed a deluge – the sort of rain that sends rivers down the paths and is great fun to watch from under a roof. And then it began to hail. We un-pegged the tent and tried to move it under the trees in one piece in the off-chance we might keep it from sloshing around in its bag for the whole day. I could feel when my coat decided to quit being water proof and simply became a soggy layer between me and the down pour. Leroy complained that his was funnelling water down his back. Things didn’t seem to fit in the trailers as well as they had the day before (amazing how careful rolling and stuffing of dry gear makes so much difference) but we did our best and got our sodden selves back on the bikes. It was still monsooning. I suggested maybe stopping at Chute Lake Lodge to wait out the worst of it, but Leroy figured we couldn’t get any wetter anyways, so we might as well be making headway on the trail. Trans-Canada guy had stopped at the Lodge but passed us not far down the trail as we slogged along. Not long after the rain started to peter out with the odd rumble of thunder following in its way. My shoes squelched and my shorts stuck, but the wet sand was slightly easier going than the dry stuff.
Chute Lake to Bellevue Canyon
The highest point of the KVR is in the Myra Canyon somewhere between all the trestles, so more than half of our day was still uphill, though the grade was much less than the previous day. The trail follows Chute Lake Road for about 5 km before it breaks off to the east and follows the top of the ridge above Kelowna. As the weather improved we got some great views of the lake, the city, and the elevation gain accomplished the day before. The biggest challenge with this part of the trail was the enormous muddy puddles that stretched across the entire path, hiding problematic obstacles from large rocks to sheer depth. In one, Leroy’s top-heavy Burley trailer tipped over, dousing his coat that had just started to dry. Thankfully, the Plano trunk and the assorted dry bags in the trailer kept the water out of our food and gear. We took to walking the bikes through the edges of the worst of the rest of them.
From here the trail improved as it wound its way through a forest of larch trees towards the Bellevue Trestle. This the longest trestle on our stretch of the KVR at just under 230 m (750ft). I’m pretty sure its the one that features in most of the well-known photos of the park, it certainly is impressive. While it is protected within the Myra-Bellevue provincial park, it is about 10 km away from the popular Myra canyon section and so obviously sees a lot less traffic. The Bellevue canyon escaped the fires of 2003 in the Myra canyon so the surrounding landscape is comparatively forested. There was no one around when we got there, so we took the time to get some photos and video of us biking. I had a hard enough time focusing on keeping my trailer wheels on the planking and off the rail ties with two hands on the handlebars, but Leroy got some great footage of crossing by holding his phone up higher with one hand. You can check that out in his video along with other footage of the Myra Canyon.
When we travel just about anywhere, I like to keep an eye out for wildlife and keep track of the animals we spot on the way. We brought along some bear spray and had been keeping it handy, but hadn’t seen anything much bigger than squirrels and birds so far. That was to change. After passing some lunching bikers that looked like they were out for the day not the week, we encountered a bear on the trail. He wasn’t very big, but small enough we were concerned that he might have a mother nearby. We made lots of noise and Leroy had his bear spray at the ready, just in case. He watched us for a bit, looking a little disoriented and then ran off into the woods. I don’t think Anna and Alice had seen a bear except on the side of the highway, so it was exciting for them. By the end of the trip we checked off a lot of the typical wildlife in the area – a moose and several deer outside of Arlington Lakes, and a few rattlesnakes in Rock Creek. More on that later though.
Myra Canyon
We came across only a few other travellers between Bellevue and Ruth station at the start of the Myra Canyon. That changed as we approached the main part of the park and the parking lot off Little White Forest Service Road.
The Myra Canyon’s 18 trestles and two tunnels make it one of the most popular sections of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. It is very accessible – only 12 km of minimal incline with a parking lot on either end and several companies offering bicycle tours and bicycle rentals – and spectacularly scenic. The trail is meticulously maintained and, similar to the Naramata stretch, no motorized vehicles are allowed. Obviously these things also make it quite busy – over 70,000 people visit every year. After a day and a half of secluded travel, it was a bit of a shock. That wore off quickly, though, as the scenery was stunning and I was able to make it out of first and second gear for the first time since we left Penticton.
The Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society has put a lot of work into the park over the last 30 years. It was originally formed after the CPR removed the rails and turned the right of way to the Provincial government. They made the trestles safe for public use, and have been continually upgrading the trail ever since. In 2003, 12 of the trestles were damaged or destroyed by wildfire. Thanks to National Historic Site status that was awarded just six months before the fire, government funding was available for their reconstruction. With significant volunteer work and generous donations, restoration work on the trestles was complete and the park re-opened just five years later in 2008. The society is now tasked with maintaining the Myra Canyon for public use and do a great job. They have built several storm shelter huts along the path and decorated them on the inside with murals and historic information.
The trail follows the top of the canyon climbing slowly as it winds its way in a wiggly U shape from Ruth to Myra station. From the start of the trail you can look across the canyon to all the other trestles yet to come, and at the end look back at where you came from. We stopped at a few of the most scenic spots for pictures and Leroy took video while crossing nearly (if not all) of the trestles and tunnels. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. Dinner time was approaching, however, and we still had about 14 km go before our goal for the day: Hydraulic Lake Rec Site.
Home Stretch – Myra Canyon to Hydraulic Lake
It was obvious where the jurisdiction of the Myra-Bellevue park ended. After crossing the Myra Forest Service Road the trail quickly reverted to a narrow, woody trail with loose rocks and large puddles. A bit of a let down from our scenic cruise through the canyon, I’ll admit. That said, we had crossed the high point and the grade was nearly level. To our surprise we had a number of vehicles come up quickly behind us – apparently we had already left the non-motorized vehicle sections behind. There was little room to pull off to the side especially with the trailers. I found myself hoping that maybe the drivers would find a really deep spot or a rock in one of the puddles they were dashing through at unreasonable speed and meet with some natural consequences. We didn’t meet up with any stranded vehicles, so I guess they all made it through to where they were going.
The trail became increasingly muddy as we worked our way towards Hydraulic lake. There are several streams that flow down towards (and probably across) the trail, and the motorized traffic had only made it worse. As we approached McColloch – named for Andrew McColloch who engineered the Kettle Valley Railway (more on him in this article) – we could see the forest service road through the trees on our left. But for the tree-less track ahead of us, it looked for all the world as if we were biking in the muddy ditch beside the road. If there had been a way onto the road we might have jumped ship right there. If we had, we would have missed the part where the grade crosses a section of Hydraulic lake itself on a bit of raised dike. The weather had much improved and the evening sun on the lake was beautiful. We fought our way through one last enormous puddle that nearly swamped Leroy’s trailer after this, then broke from the trail by the Nordic Ski Club and took the forest service road for the last kilometer to the rec site. The brief zip on a downhill, hard-pack, dirt road left me no regrets about our choice. After all, we could see the trail nearly the whole way.
We rolled into the Rec site around 6:30 pm – two hours to go the last 14 km, just over eight from when we left Chute Lake in the rain. I set up the tent to let it dry out in the wind while Leroy got the water heating for dinner. The kids ran around while we worked – excited about the prospect of hot chocolate after dinner. It had been a long time since breakfast, with only a bean bar and a granola bar in between, so Leroy and I both had extra dinner – Chili and Chicken Stew. The kids still wanted Stroganoff. I got the treat of a beautiful sunset while I scrubbed the dishes in the lake. We even had a bit of a fire. A great evening, with the promise of better weather and some downhill for the next day.
