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Published: August 23rd 2019
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We had a decision to make - How to get to Kelowna? Our original plan was to go via the rail trail around the Myra Canyon and in to Kalowna. The Myra Canyon was the whole point of taking the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, it has 22 trestle bridges and numerous tunnels. But because the trail had been so bad, we reconsidered this option. Instead we would take the rail trail part way and then detour straight to Kelowna and head out to the Myra Canyon the next day.
Settled!
We had a good breakfast at Denny's and headed out on the trail. From the town of Penticton, and for the first 20kms the trail was very well groomed and easy to ride on. It was all up hill though at a constant 2% to 4% gradient. The views as we climbed above Lake Okanagan were simply magnificent. The Lake is about 120kms long north to south and about 2-3kms wide. This would really be a beautiful spot to visit for an extended stay.
As we continued to steadily climb we passed apple orchards with trees heavy with fruit and vines laden with grapes almost ready to be
picked.
At one point Tom and Jeff had fallen behind a bit while Graeme and I rode ahead. Eventually the boys caught up, and Jeff asked if I had dropped anything. I thought, what's he talking about, and then looked at the back of Jeff's bike an saw one of my panniers! I spun around and sure enough I was one pannier short. It had come off as I crossed a bridge and lay there for the lads to come across. Luckily they were behind to pick it up - who knows how far I would have gotten before realising it was missing.
Once we passed the "touristy" part of the trail it quickly turned to a marginal track. The going got much tougher and much slower. We slogged on as best we could, our tyres are not really wide enough for the sandy trail, they slip a lot and when the sand gets deep it's like trying to pedal through mud towing a tyre. There were parts of the track that we had to push the bikes through because you just couldn't ride.
After what seemed an agonising eternity we got to Chute Lake where there
was a lodge. It was about 3pm and Chute Lodge was meant to be our lunch stop and we were famished and low on food. While eating our hosts told us the road we planned on taking to Kelowna was very steep and would be quite dangerous on bikes. This left us with a quandry, should we press on to Myra Canyoon today? This was meant to be the highlight of the KVR which had been absolute hell so far and we didn't want to have to rush through and we knew we'd be getting to Kelowna late. Despite that we decided to give it a go.
We left the lodge and travelled for about 10kms and stopped to take stock. We calculated that we were still going to be riding on the trail during the dark and that would be too dangerous and not really let us take the time we wanted in the canyon - so we reluctantly turned back to the lodge and booked a room for the night. We had covered 60kms, all of it up hill, most of it on sandy trail gaining over 800 meters. A very tough day in the saddle, and we
hadn't gotten to our next stop.
Tomorrow the plan is to head to Myra Canyon where we'll have the best part of a day to take our time and enjoy it - the tressle bridges and tunnels better be worth all of the hype.
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