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July 18, 2020 – Nelson to Creston

We were up early for coffee and then out the door on one of the most beautiful summer days in the Kootenays, so far.

Friends who hosted me in Nelson had planned a big kayak day on the beautiful Kootenay lake.

I noticed the famed ORANGE Nelson bridge is actually orange and pink.

My friends put in at Kokanee Creek Provincial Park.

I’d driven past a hundred times over the years but never stopped before. This campground I’d rank with the best in the world for motor access / family fun.

For example, they have something called the Holt Cyclist Shelter. You can set up your tent outside, but under a big roof.

I carried on down the very familiar highway to catch the longest FREE ferry in B.C.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 rules make everyone stay with their vehicle.

The woman loading as I arrived ignored me … so I cycled aboard when she wasn’t watching. I was the only cyclist.

My dad built a summer home in Crawford Bay and we kept it about 30 years. None of my nuclear family had been back since it had been sold.

Here it is, opposite the wishing well on Kokanee Springs Golf Course.

 

We’d heard the buyer had done zero maintenance and it certainly looked that way to me.

My Mom’s golfball garden had not been touched since she left.

I have only great memories of my years at Crawford Bay. To celebrate I had lunch at the clubhouse.

I would like to return one day for golf.

I’d been leery about the 91km Gray Creek Pass, the official route of the GREAT Trail:

… Gray Creek to Kimberley is an extremely arduous journey in the wilderness for 80 km on a forestry road, plus an extra 10 km through Kimberley Nature Park with minimal amenities, no supplies and limited-to-no cell service …

Cyclists should carry spare brakes, chain links, tubes, tires and a comprehensive set of bike tools. If you are up to the challenge, you certainly will be glad you tried it! …

I spoke with two cyclists who had come over from the opposite direction. They predicted I’d have to push my bike uphill for about 17km if I tried it my direction. 😐

… So, it was a long day in the sun alongside Kootenay lake. I took the longer, easier paved highway to Cranbrook, instead.

Very few stops as mosquitoes were as bad as I’ve ever seen in this lifetime anywhere. Seems the late, wet spring this year hatched far more than usual. Out for blood.

Towns have fewer mosquitoes so I thought to camp somewhere in Creston. Towns have fewer bugs.

Unfortunately Creston is a town without many good campgrounds. They only want RVs.  I asked a police officer and he had no specific advice.

… a town of 5,351 people in the Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The town is located approximately 10 km (6 mi) north of the border crossing into the United States …

The Creston Valley’s economy is largely resource-based with agriculture and forestry. Many are employed in the service sector, and tourism is increasingly prominent …

Lush farmland.

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July 17, 2020 Bulldog tunnel to Nelson

I woke early feeling great. That made 4 nights in series sleeping even better than usual.

First up was the 1km Bulldog tunnel. As I’d decided not to bring a headlamp I had to walk it holding my camera flashlight.

There are a number of these tunnels on the Castlegar – Christina Lake section.

This rugged and most remote section of the KVR/C&W rail trail is scattered with historical artifacts from the boom days.

Rolling down hill I met the only other cyclists I saw for 2 days – a family of four, just packing up after breakfast.  They were cycling to Vancouver.

As I got close to Castlegar I was reminded of their huge forestry industry.

The powerful rivers of the Kootenays generate a lot of hydro power, as well.

Sitting in Tim Horton’s Castlegar I looked closely, for the first time, at the next section of the Great Trail to Nelson.

Scary. 63km if you manage to find the route. No camping allowed.

‘… Touring cyclists may find this route incredibly challenging as the route is more suitable for mountain bikes. Therefore we have marked this portion of the TCT as “Hiking Only”. …’

So … I decided to take the highway instead, risking getting pushed off the road by logging trucks and motor homes.

Nelson is close to my heart. Relatively free of the chain stores, franchises and strip-mall developments, it retains a rustic feel.

I understand opioids have caused a lot of grief here in recent years.  In the old days, they were all mellow hippie pot growers.

I stayed with friends. Good fun.

Nelson is a lovely place.

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July 16, 2020 Grand Forks to Bulldog tunnel

I checked out of my air conditioned motel in Grand Forks at 11am.

Left town about Noon.

Do I look clean, rested and refreshed?

A good trail continues alongside the Kettle river though this section was the Columbia & Western Railway.

You cross the Kettle on this bridge and finally head north and away.

It’s uphill on a sandy trail that crosses high above Christina lake.

The rest of the day was pure Trans Canada Great Trail. Rugged and remote. I saw very few other people. For hours.

There are a number of tunnels.

I was considering switching to highway 3 for a change getting to Castlegar.

Nope. It was too big a detour from trail to way up there.

Everyone is happy to get to the summit, Farron station. It’s downhill from here.

I stopped at 7pm at one of my better campsites, so far. A historic rail stop signed Tunnel adjacent to the nearly 1-km long Bulldog tunnel.

Once again, mosquitoes were a thing. So I built a big smudge. 😊

Lovely evening.

I am starting to notice days getting shorter. This photo from my tent was taken at 9:40pm.

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July 15, 2020 to Grand Forks

My thinking this day was to get to Grand Forks as quickly as possible.  Grab a cheap motel to catch up on photos, videos.  And recharge the batteries literally and figuratively.

Take an easy day.   And a late start the following day.

 The heat was getting to me.

The scenery changed again, now mixed farming.

One downside here is an endless series of ‘cow gates’ … though you never see any cows any where near.

My brother and I recently added a kickstand to the bike — a big help when getting on and off frequently.

Some sections of the Great Trail allow motor vehicles, this one included. A drag for cyclists.

Some don’t leave.

Wanting to check into the motel early I skipped the last 25km of trail into Grand Forks, taking the highway instead. It was all downhill. And I zoomed in.

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July 14, 2020

Yesterday was all uphill. Today all down hill (and south) towards Grand Forks 🙂

A pretty, mellow day — though I found the heat tiring.

I stopped for brunch (toasted bagel and coffee) at a perfect campsite – Arlington Lakes.

With my dedicated phone/camera lost, I notice I’d taken fewer photos. It had been better to have had two phones.

I stopped for late lunch at the cute town of Beverdell.

This year I’m alternating the Great Trail with paved roads more often. Pavement results in speeds double or triple … but the risk of being blown off the road by a logging truck.

Happily I rolled on to a brand new paved road at one point.

One very real highlight of B.C. is WATER: lakes, rivers and waterfalls.

No bears, so far. Plenty of deer.

I thought I saw my first badger — but it may have just been a skunk or marmot.

I rolled into a big beautiful campground signed FULL … and was offered a crappy spot for $30, same price as your huge motor home.

Instead I rolled through the camp and found 3 other cyclists. They graciously offered me the chance to join. And we enjoyed plenty of beer and wine over the campfire.

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July 13, 2020

I hung around Penticton in the morning continuing to try to locate my lost iPhone X with FIND MY PHONE.  Still no luck.

The weather had cleared.

Finally I started up the long, sandy rail trail towards the most famous section of the Trans Canada Great Trail.

Instead of temperate rain forest, I was clearly now in desert.

This is the Kettle Valley Rail trail, famed for tunnels and trestles.

To feed the men building this incredible line, cooks built rock ovens between 1911 and 1915.

The entire day was beautiful. But SLOW with my narrow gravel bike tires.

I wished I had a more robust mountain bike trying to pedal through dozens of these pools.

Finally Kelowna came into sight — far below.

It was early evening before I reached the trestles.

Hot in Kelowna, it was cool and windy up above.

I cycled like mad to catch the last of the sun while making dinner.

I phoned and waved at friends way down in Kelowna.

And finally set up my tent next to the only thru HIKER I’d seen on the KVR. It’s a far better cycling than hiking route.

GREAT DAY.

I highly recommend you make your way to the Myra trestles. It’s easy to rent a bike up top.

I saw a lot of electric bikes this year too, though you couldn’t rent them in 2020.

Last year I made a video of the tunnels and trestles above Kelowna …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

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July 11-12, 2020

Bad news.

I lost my iPhone X while rocking downhill from Summerland to Penticton.

It must have bounced loose from my hip holster.  Damn Otterbox Defender.

UPDATE:  I got the phone back 18-days-later.   The awesome Find My Phone app located it in a warehouse in Penticton.  Someone had found it on the street and taken it to work. 

Friends from Kelowna had to drive to Penticton to pick it up.  Mail it to my Calgary address via FedEx. 

Near end-of-life, I was using that phone for photo/video while doing everything else on my new iPhone SE 2020.

For the rest of the cycling trip, I used just my SE.

The weather steadily improving, I enjoyed these 2 days.

I camped near Thalia, a lovely and quiet area close to Vancouver.

From Thalia to Princeton I took a combination of paved very quiet roads and the Kettle Valley Rail Trail.

I was surprised to see so many puddles on the KVR.

In Princeton — on the advice of other cyclists — I opened my never used Ride with GPS app and somehow got it to work.

At this point I’m not sure if I’m on a free month or subscribed for the year.

Ride with GPS is awesome, however, compared with the crappy official Great Trail app.

Cycling from Princeton north was lovely.

The first high bridge. Several more tunnels. Lovely lakes.

Lovely lands.

I really like the Summerland area and would be happy to sit back drinking local wine. Enjoying these kinds of views.

I cycled around the pretty town of Penticton during the evening as wind raised.

I had found a good spot near Penticton last year. Set up my tent there again this year.

Onward.  Without the iPhone X.

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July 10, 2020

Waking up near the Coquahalla highway, I wasn’t all that psyched. The worst section would likely be today.

Cycling the other way last year I had many problems, including getting lost for a couple of hours.

On the up side, there’s one gorgeous 22km section on logging roads — closed to motor vehicles — with plenty of highlights. One of the best sections of the Kettle Valley Railway trail, in fact.

As the Othello Tunnels near Hope were still closed due to COVID-19, it was nice to reach a couple here not yet closed due to avalanche.

Engineer Andrew McCulloch named many Coquihalla subdivision stations after characters in Shakespearean literature, such as Iago, Romeo, Juliet, Lear, Jessica, and Portia.

This is the Iago tunnel, for example.

There’s a highway rest stop near Coquahalla Summit which is a must for every cyclist. The wurst vendor instantly warned me to skip the Great Trail through to Brookmere as it’s simply a mess in 2020.

That was confirmed by 3 women riding the other way. They told me it was the worst section they’d had in BC.

That was excellent advice.

I stayed on the Coquahalla up to the Coldwater turnoff.

Finally off the highway, this area is little populated farm land.

Relaxing.

At Brookmere I joined the Kettle Valley Railway proper and will mostly stay on it through to Midway.

Rail trails are low grade. Often gravel. Sometimes washed out.

I camped close to Thalia. AGAIN pestered by mosquitoes.

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July 9, 2020

I’d camped at Harrison Hot Springs. It rained most of the night, continuing in the morning.

Stayed in the tent as long as I could.

When the drizzle wouldn’t quit I finally got up for coffee. And wandered the nearly deserted resort.

I was tempted to detour to Sasquatch Provincial Park, north of Harrison Hot Springs. It has two easy hiking trails and one interpretive trail. But my general plan is to hurry through the first half of my ride and go slow on the second.

I don’t mind riding in the rain, actually. It’s better than the heat.

I stopped at Hope for grub, wifi and electricity.

Weather did improve as I started up the Coquihalla highway 5 headed north.

This was the worst section of the Trans Canada Great Trail for me last year, cycling the other direction. I finally gave up on it and simply rolled down the highway into Hope.

This year, too, I often opted back to the busy highway. MANY TRUCKS!

A lot of people camp for free along this highway, however. Crown land.

Late in the afternoon I considered stopping at this friendly free campsite off the highway, but it was a little too public for my liking.

Most of the flowers are fading, but there are a few species still vibrant.

I finally found this secluded gravel bed. As it had rained off and on all day I wanted as dry a surface as possible.

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After nearly 4 months in Parksville, Vancouver Island, I finally made for the mainland.

Alarm 4:40am.

Dad dropped me in Nanaimo July 8th to catch the 6:05 ferry to Horseshoe Bay.

I’d started my long cycling adventure last year out of Nanaimo on July 3, 2019.

Rockin’ Ronnie picked me up and we headed for a Golf Course in Chilliwack that had been recommended. Can you tell he’s been living in dread Lynn Valley, North Vancouver, one of the first epicentres of COVID-19 in Canada?

Admire Ron’s hand-made plexiglass divider!

We had time to indulge in a big clubhouse brunch. I had classic bacon, eggs and coffee. Marble rye toast.

We hit the range. My practice swings were terrible, including a number of air balls. I hadn’t golfed in nearly a year.

Surprisingly I had a great round finishing with a score of about 98, which could have been worse if we hadn’t awarded gimme short puts. I had 1 Birdie, 3 pars. The best score of my life was 86 so this was a very good day.

Rockin’ scored 98, as well, and was pleased to be able to stay with me. 😀

Instead of hitting the 19th hole, Rockin’ pulled out some gourmet sandwiches. We ate outside the wedding podium.

I started my ride from the course — missing the worst of greater Vancouver — arriving Harrison Hot Springs in about 4 hours.

I used the lousy GREAT TRAIL app, sponsored by Keen, for navigation. The green line is the Great Trail.

It’s lousy, but better than any other of my apps at finding the Trans Canada Great Trail.

I’d ridden the Great Trail in the other direction last year … and was still surprised to recall how lovely and interesting this section.

Early evening I stopped to see if I might want to wild camp along the mighty Fraser River. Instantly swarmed by mosquitoes, I rode away quickly.

Typically there are very few biting insects on the Left Coast of Canada. This was weird.

Wanting to get away from the river, I detoured to Harrison Hot Springs — mainly because I’d never been there before.

Gabbed a camping spot at an RV Park. Cost for your motorhome is about $45 / night. I negotiated $35 cash, no receipt for my little tent.

Canadian campgrounds are the best in the world. But most charge a fixed price / site, which makes it costly for solo cyclists and hikers. In Germany last year they charge fixed price / person / night — so it was inexpensive for me.

Harrison Hot Springs’ greatest attraction is its titular springs, of course, but it also has the Ranger Station Public Art Gallery, a marina with jet boat tours of the lake available, a nine-hole golf course, and is the closest access to Sasquatch Provincial Park. …

The tourist trap was much bigger and more developed than I expected.

But in July following COVID-19, it wasn’t very busy, most of the licence plates from B.C.

Late in the evening I cycled the near deserted waterfront.  Harrison is an impressive lake!

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