KVR day 3: Rock Creek Reunion

After a better sleep than I expected, given the nearby highway and my site neighbour starting up his truck to go to work at 4 am (don't worry he warned me the night before he's an okay guy), I awoke to another frosty morning in the hills. 

Thermometer registered 0°C on the nose but my searchea for frost yielded nothing. It definitely felt colder than at Chute Lake for some reason. 

I hastily made my breakfast, hoping that the warm coffe and oats would toast me up inside. While pouring hot water into my thermos I found some ice on the edge of the picnic table, success.

By 8:15 I was all packed up and although the sun was beginning to creep down the hills it still felt pretty chilly so I layered up with sweater and gloves again. 

Soon I was hot on the trail of the KVR, finding my access point a little ways down a gravel road. As I have come to expect, the first few km were pretty ravaged by vehicle traffic but I hit on a few sections where ATVs were unable to sneak onto the trail and things improved.

As the sun finally peeked into my face I was back in lands ruled by the ATV and had to drop my speed a bit to dodge rocks and ruts. The temperature quickly rose and just as I was looking to layer down and pee I found a wild (feral?) apple tree! Very neat and while the apples were fairly small, it was good to have fresh fruit.

By late morning I began getting into farmlands at the bottom of the valley and the trail often required me to pass through and relatch livestock gates. However, this afforded me some riding through gorgeous open fields and along a quiet, crystal clear river. 

A quick lunch break and water top up saw me the last few kilometers of the rail trail into Rock Creek and the Crowsnest Highway, where I passed through once before on the Cross Canada tour in 2018. Not as nostalgic as I expected but then again, I was going the opposite direction back then.

Since it was only 12:30 I made the judgement call to go another 50 km to Osooyoos for the day, knowing that there would be a significant and long climb out of Rock Creek.

Steeling myself with some butter tarts from the gas station I shifted into the little ring and began up the hill. 

The temperature crept into the mid 20s.

There was no breeze.

No shade.

Just 800m of climbing into the blazing sun.

I had to stop at a few points to layer down, apply sunscreen and refill water bottles but eventually I made it over the summit and began the long downhill to Osooyoos. 

Unfortunately my hopes of screaming down Anarchist Mountain at mach 10 were soon dashed when I hit road construction that would only end in the last kilometer of the descent. Adding to my sweaty body the flying sand and dust from passing vehicles and I looked pretty unsavoury as I rolled into town.

I made a quick pitstop to the gelato shop, where I got a snack and asked to see my entry in the bicycle tourists logbook from 2018. Sure enough, there it was. Ahhhh there's the nostalgia.

A few moments of panic soon followed when I got to the Provincial Park and found it to be full. Calling around town seemed to indicate that all the other campgrounds in town had closed for the season. I was steeling myself to ride another hour and pray that the next Provincial Park had space when I reached someone at a campground/RV resort on the other side of town. They had sites!

I sprinted over as quickly as possible just in case and secured a somewhat costly site but it had power and water so I wasn't too upset. 

I checked my data for the last few days and realized I may be behind on calories so I made a big pot of mashed potatoes for dinner and then relaxed with a walk around the beach area at sunset. 

Remarking at the blood red moon rising (with what eerily looked to be a skull in the crater formations) and gazing across the lake at the US border, I began making plans for another bike tour next week. 

Finally, I brushed my teeth and slipped into bed.

Still warm at 8:15 pm and nicely secure and quiet. Should be a good sleep tonight.

Tomorrow is an easy 65 km back to Penticton to pick up my car.

Try getting through this gap ATVs.

Free trailside snacks.

KVR day 2: Dennys big day

Despite the warm sunny weather the day before, there was a noticeable chill in the air in the morning at Chute Lake. A night of weird dreams had left me tossing, turning and waking up every hour or so until it was finally light enough to cook breakfast. 

I make up my usual oatmeal and instant coffe while letting my fancy new keychain thermometer acclimate to the air temperature. 

As I was sipping coffee, I was shocked to see it sitting a shade above 0°C. I was wearing a hoodie for comfort but otherwise fine in short pants and without gloves. Must have been the gross Yukon summer and frosty field work in Beaver Creek a month ago that made me ready for chilly weather.

To be safe, I put on my jacket and gloves to start the day. It turned out the be the right call, as even suited up I could definitely feel a nip in the air and found a few patches of frost along the lake.

About an hour into the day though the sun was out and I was soon stripping back to short sleeves.

If only the road/trail surface had improved as quickly!

Coming out of Chute Lake, the surface got progressively rougher for about 15 km, with many sections of deep potholea or with unfortunately large rocks jutting out of the dirt. Speed was not that impressive. Luckily there was good scenery of the Kelowna valley but I spent a lot of time brooding on the evils of allowing motor traffic on otherwise wonderful trails.

As I approached Myra, a few logging roads intersected the trail and vehicle influence waned while the trail surface got better. Eventually I reached an awesome section where motor vehicles were unable to access and began winding around a wide canyon along a series of curving trestle bridges. The sun was out and I stopped to put on some sunscreen and enjoy the lovely scenery. There was even a couple of tunnels. Very cool. 

All good things come to an end though and eventually I popped back out onto the section of KVR that vehicles are allowed on and the silky smooth gravel became quite a bit less silky.

Still, it wasn't too awful and I was making solid time so I was in a pretty good mood. 

Shortly after my lunch break, I encountered two ladies by the trailside and soon discovered that one of them had crashed and injured her hip. I offered whatever help I could but they were good on food and water had already sent a friend to call for rescue and were fine on food and water. 40 km later I would remember the painkillers and triangular bandages in my first aid kit. Oops.

Aside from about 5 km of trail that had been horrifically thrashed by a brushcutter (apparently on government orders?) the rest of the afternoon was 100% downhill and quite warm, with more or less smooth trails.

The final 5 km into Beaverdell was a bit rough, likely having something to do with the incredible amount of ATV tracks along the trail...

I made it into town by 4:30 though and stopped off at the small store for a tomato and a sandwich. Then it was off to the campground. A tent site by the road ran 30$, a bit steep but not a lot of options and the showers and water were drinkable and unlimited. 

I had a short chat with my neighbour the next site over while eating dinner, then did some reading until it got too dark (around 7:15) and retired to bed. 

A big day at over 100km. I can theoretically make it bad to Penticton in two days but the distances between campgrounds make it a bit weird. Either a short day to Johnson Creek tomorrow or a long one to expensive camping at Osoyoos. We'll have to see.

Morning at Chute Lake. Note the frost.

Whoaaaaa. Bridges are cool.

Somewhat regretting passing up the gorgeous free camping at Arlington Lakes. But I did get to eat a fresh veggie instead...

KVR day 1: Cheeseburger in Paradise

September 28th. Pentiction, BC. Back to bike touring.

I've wanted to do the Kettle Valley Rail Trail for a while now and I managed to get a place to park my car through Warmshowers so it was on.

I stayed a night at a provincial park north of Penticton so I could take a shower and then woke up the morning of the 28th and drove into town. 

I rendezvoused with my "host" by 9:30 am and, having prepacked my bags, was on the road minutes later. 

I did a few kilometers along some very nice bike lanes until I came across the KVR. The trail soon took me out of the downtown area and into orchard country. Very cool to be passing beautiful ripe grapes and apples just beside the trail. Lots of people passing by too and I stopped a few times to chat with cyclists and once a guy wearing a White Pass shirt. 

As the trail reached Naramata, the long, slow climb began, but being an old rail route, the gradient never exceeded about 3% except for short stretches so it was pretty easy pedalling the entire way up. 

I had a tailwind heading north, it was sunny without a cloud in the sky, and the trail was pretty well groomed riding for the first 20 kms or so. After passing through a tunnel (very cool), I came to the end of the section that vehicles are excluded from and the going got significantly rougher. I had to drop my speed and even then, managed to ding a big rock every 50m or so.

It was more or less rough the rest of the way up to Chute Lake, but I took it slow and tried to spare my poor bike as much as possible. I ran into an older woman (Donna?) also biking the KVR. She had come down from Chute Lake direction to Penticton already and was heading back up so she gave me a little intel about the trail ahead.

I rolled into Chute Lake around 2pm, which despite being in the middle of nowhere, is blessed with a lodge and a rec site. I set up shop at the vacant rec site (yay weekdays) and then headed over to investigate the likewise vacant lodge. 

They had a hamburger and beer on offer. I hadn't really eaten much that day, missing out on grocery shopping before leaving civilization, so I had to partake. It was nice and sunny so I sat outside and soaked up some rays while eating. Very satisfying.

Donna (?) had the same idea apparently and showed up just as I was finishing my burger. 

After wandering back to the rec site I polished off my day by doing some reading, taking a short walk and cooking another small dinner before calling it a night by 7:30 (at which time it became dark).

Biking through a vineyard in short sleeves at the end of September! So good.

Rattlesnake count is 0 as of day 2. Lots of grouse though.

Really hits the spot when you've biked hours on oatmeal and protein bars.

On the Road Again, pt II

Biking back along the brewery's 2 km driveway, I reflected on my luck to have met the great owners. Soon my reflections were interrupted by two cows on the road.

They seemed pretty freaked out by my bike and jogged ahead of me for a bit until they ran away over a small meadow.

Turning the next corner I was suddenly faces with their friends. All 20 of them and all standing in front of the gate. The two I had chases promptly walked out of the woods and joined them.

After a minute or two of gentle reassurances and creative sign language, I managed to open a narrow path to the cattleguard and successfully escaped Cowtopia. Back onto the gravel to retrace my steps.

The 30 km back to the pavement was much nicer than the day before, fortified by a solid sleep and some non-dehydrated meals. I did take a few snack breaks but also just rode it nice and slow and enjoyed the scenery. I only had about 80 km based on rough map calculations to ride, aiming at a rec site on the northwest side of Francois Lake. 

After an hour and a half I reattained the pavement and promptly picked up an extra 5 km/hr or so. A sign warned me of heavy logging traffic for the next 40 km but being Sunday, I only passed about 6 or 7 vehicle the entire day. Soon a light tailwins caught me and my pace increased yet again. Everything was coming up Denny.

Around lunchtime the gravel returnes and I spent the next hour slowly climbing a nice, easy gradient up the ridge between Francois and Ootsa Lakes. As I cleared the summit, I could see a large stormcloud sweeping away east across Francois Lake, but it looked to be missing me completely. I even had a brief glimpse of some mountains to the west. Nice.

I was rewarded for my climbing at last and enjoyed a long, winding descent back to the lake, and a deceivingly short flat section before getting a reminder that BC road engineers take perverse delight in sending their roads over every possible hill. Short but steep and winding hills along with periodic showers were the theme for the last hour and a half of the day. At one point, what looked very like a cougar butt disappeares around a copse of aspen.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I had missed the turnoff for my rec site, it appeared around the next corner. Showers were rolling in again so I quickly set up camp, and began cooking dinner in the cook shelter while polishing off a book.

I had the rec site all to myself and spent the rest of the night reading and pensively wandering around in my raincoat. The darkness rolled in by 7:45 pm and, exhausted by a few big days, fell asleep early.

The next day I woke up with the sunrise again, cooked a slow breakfast, packed up my poor, sopping wet tent and began peddaling by 8:30. 

Feeling quite frigid, I had to wear a hoodie, rain jacket and gloves. I had to wonder if I was just being a wuss, since there was no sign of frost and my breathe wasn't fogging. At my mid morning stop I found one bar of service, and checking the weather, realized it had been +1°C that morning. Probably one of the coldest mornings I will see for a while hopefully. The morning ended up being a lovely spin along the lake, with few hills and the sun coming out by 10 am. A few locals called out from their yards to make sure I was okay. I guess they don't get much in the way of bike touring traffic out here.

I made it back to the ferry landing by 11 am and scooted over two short hills back to Burns Lake by lunch time. I sent off a few quick messages to assure people I had not been eaten by cougars or creamed by a logging truck and then began humping my bike back up the steep road to Kager Lake. 

The rain had unfortunately made the road quite soupy, so I had to grind up in my easiest gear to make it through the mud, despite the slope being only 8 or 9%. Luckily my car was undisturbed and I gratefully changed into clean clothes and ate a chocolate bar while drying the tent in a nice ray of sun.

After catching my breathe for a half an hour, I popped into town with the car, demolished a hamburger, picked up some groceries and beer and returned to Kager Lake to celebrate the successful test tour.

Next up, south to the Okanagan. 

"oh, would like you like to use this road?"

Emotional moment after many kilometers of climbing. Note the giant raincloud.

Success!

On the Road Again, pt I

I just couldn't wait to get on the road again.

While the big plan for the fall vacation was to do an extended tour of the Okanagan, West Kootenays, and anywhere else with lingering warmth in BC, I hadn't done any real bicycle touring in two years and wanted to make sure all the gear and my body were ready.

I had planned a few possible tester runs and the one that stood out was a spin south of Burns Lake to a brewery about 100 km away over some gravel backroads, returning on more logging roads through remote country southeast of Fraser Lake. It would be a good distance to complete in about 3 days and would verify my rig could handle extended gravel and some cooler mornings.

I had a leisurely morning at the rec site and carefully packed up the touring gear, trying to hit a balance of low weight and also not forgetting anything crucial. I chatted up a few locals regarding places to park my car and they all seemed to agree that the rec site was probably my best bet.

Parking the car in an empty campsite and crossing my fingers, I hopped on the loaded touring rig and headed down the road. About 100m later I was stopped by a woman who needed a picture of an "interesting stranger" for some sort of social media scavenger hunt. Boy if that doesn't describe me.

I then realized I wasn't wearing my helmet and had to retrace my pedal strokes back to the car for it.

Finally hitting the road, I headed south from Burns Lake. Several hills arose before me but I already had the touring balance in and traffic was light so I made it to the ferry at Francois Lake in good time and without incident. I timed it almost perfectly and just had time to eat a cheese bun before the ferry loaded and headed across the lake.

Heading south, I started grinding over a series of large hills (small mountains?) into a headwind that became more and more spicy as the day went on. Well, at least my luck and route planning skills remain unchanged from two years ago...

By 3pm, I was still an hour from the brewery at least, knee deep into the gravel, and already 100m above the predicted elevation gain from Google Maps. In top of this it was hot, and I made the dummy mistake of not filling my water at the perfectly convenient boat launch on Ootsa Lake.

Another hour and a half of rolling gravel hills (sometimes hitting 15% gradient) finally saw me at the 2 km long driveway to Ursa Minor Brewing, where I scared off a small bear and headed down the driveway in search of beer. 

Finally rolling into the brewery, feeling like I had been beaten with a fairly big stick, I was greeted by the proprietors, who enthusiastically informed me that I was the first cyclist to ever visit them. I guess the 90 km/1200m of climbing on gravel roads is a bit of a discouragement for some.

I was the only one around so I could give them the full Denny monologue about my life while they told me about their brewing adventures. 

Eventually, they brought out a map of the local logging roads and after some consultation, I decided to change my course and go west around Francois Lake to return to Burns Lake. It would cut out a lot of hills and some sketchy remoteness and would also let me take shorter days without risking running out of snacks.

The owners also then made the very generous offer to let me camp on their lawn and have dinner with them. Being an old hand at bicycle touring I obviously accepted.

After shutting down the brewery for the night, ee chased another (or maybe the same) small bear away from the lawn, with the help of their dog, and I set up my tent for the night. 

I had a great dinner with them and their family and some wonderful post-dinner conversation before settling in for the night in the old trusty tent.

I woke up at 6:45 yet again and enjoyed the sunrise for 5 minutes until it started raining, then went back to sleep for an hour. By 7:45 the rain had stopped and I popped inside for coffee and eggs before walking out the the pigpen to watch the pigs get fed spent grain. I took my time packing up and filling water while saying goodbye to the adorable dogs and cat. I was sent on my way with a final treat, a bag of carrots, fresh from the garden. 

All in all, not a bad payoff for a long, hard ride. I clipped into my pedals and began heading back up the driveway.

Back at it with the old workhorse.

Loving the lawn decorations, right next door to a church of course.

All you need for a good spot is some goodwill and a good bear dog.

Peter Pan Syndrome

Well, for the last two years since the big tour I have grappled with various levels of responsibility.

In the midst of a somewhat stressful month of trying to figure out how to build a house, the COVID pandemic began to hit its stride in March and I realized that I wasn't really ready to grow up yet.

So, with my usual summer work in Alaska no longer allowed, and my house building plans on hold indefinitely, I began to brainstorm alternative ideas for the future.

Above all, the idea of spending another winter sitting in front of a computer screen was not all that appealing. So, I formulated a plan to escape the winter in the Yukon, aided by the travel bubble we have with BC. 

I spent the summer camping and sinking some money into my car while deliberating and planning but mostly contemplating various ways I could recapture the carefree touring life.

By the time autumn rolled around, I was dead set on escaping winter by whatever means available. After some last minute field work in the Beaver Creek region, I frantically packed up my car and bike and got my room as tidy as it has been for years. On Wednesday, September 16th, I took off south on indefinite vacation 

The plan: spend a month bike touring BC until winter caught up with me, then spend the winter on Vancouver Island, exploring or working as my mood dictated.

Leaving Whitehorse on day one was quite warm and sunny. I tried unsuccessfully to settle into a relaxed vacation mood but spent most of the drive worrying about possible car issues and debating whether I was making the right choice in leaving. I am still young and feel I should take rhe chance to enjoy my youth but I'm also not getting any younger and eventually I should start thinking about setting up a more secure life and maybe starting a family.

Anyways, as I wrestled with my own doubts, I turned onto Highway 37 and crossed into BC, saying goodbye to the Yukon and shortly after passing two older bicycle tourists heading north on a late-season tour. They both smiled and waved. I took it as a good sign.

All the small native communities were closed to visitors due to the pandemic but luckily there was gas at Dease Lake. I eventually decided to call it a night after about 800 km and eventually settled in a pullout somewhere between Iskut and Meziadin. I had been testing various methods of sleeping in my car all summer and was quite comfortable, tucked away from the highway behind some willows.

An early sunrise woke me at 6:45 and I cooked some quick breakfast before wiping the copious condensation off my windows.

I had descended into coastal climates the night before and began to see more green plants, tall spruce, amd hanging lichens.

I made good time in the morning and arrived in Terrace by lunch time. I settled in at the municipal campground and set up the bike to go drop a 6 pack of Yukon beer off with Murray and Sherry, who had generously offered me a place to camp, a shower, and several meals on the cross Canada tour. 

It was getting warm by that time and I tried to dress light but I was not prepared for +22°C after an unusually cold and rainy summer in the Yukon. The 6 pack acting as a boat anchor didn't help either and I was dripping sweat when I rolled into Murrays yard. Luckily he was around, working on the roof and we had a short chat and exchanged phone numbers before I headed back to the local brewery, a six pack lighter.

The next day, I purchased some donuts, tracked down some camping fuel with the advice of the local sporting goods store guy (apparently there is a shortage of camping fuel, as it is hard to ship it from the US right now) and headed east into the interior.

It was a good day for driving, just warm enough, and I actually enjoyed the drive and began to feel very road trippy.

I took a longer break in Smithers to get some snacks and visit the brewery, where I ran into a friend of my sisters, from the same high school I went to.

With a bike tour in my head in the Burns Lake area, I decided to stop there for the night and some parking lot research led me up a steep, gravel road to the Kager Lake rec site. Upon arrival, I quickly claimed a (free) site, as I noticed the area was popular with local mountain bikers, who were quickly arriving in droves for the weekend.

Feeling pretty spicy, I unloaded the bike and did a 'casual' ride, that ended up taking me on a max effort up to the radio towers on Boer Mountain. My pump at hammering out a strong effort soon faded when I realized the sun was going down and I had 500m of descending to do in twilight on a steep hill with rim brakes.

I survived the downhill though, getting back to my car just as it got dark. No time to cook so I scarfed some donuts and a 2 day old cheese bun before settling into the car for the night.

Loaded up for the road.

Success! Back in civilization.

Smoky beers in Smithers.