Making Tracks

As I write this blog entry, I am sitting on the banks of the beautiful Grandy River in Grand Forks, BC.  A very warm day is winding down and except for the occasional mosquito, it is a very pleasant evening with sound of running water and birds singing in the trees along the bank. It is a pleasure to be able to enjoy the surroundings rather than be cooped up inside a hotel room. 

The Granby River in Grand Forks, BC

While our room at the Manning Park Resort was quite good, the heat was a problem. At bedtime, even with the window open the temperature was 76F, not the best conditions to enjoy a good night's sleep after a long ride. At 6:30 a.m. it was still 71.4F even though the overnight temperature was around 5C. It was an almost cloudless morning as we had breakfast and had a last look at our surroundings. A great deal of work has gone into making the resort attractive and it caters to a specific clientele, mostly hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts with accommodations for star gazers as there is very little to no light pollution from the viewpoint. The resort has a large number of carvings in other building as well. Because of the contrast between light and shadow in the morning it was difficult to capture good quality images, but here are some of the carvings.

This morning we heard a constant chirping as we walked to the restaurant and this little guy seemed to be trying to get out attention. The ground squirrels here are accustomed to humans and don't seem to overly wary of them as long as you keep your distance. 

Today's start was a bit later because the temperature was still cool after 9:00. We loaded or bikes and were shortly on our was to Princeton where we refueled and headed north on highway 5A to Aspen Grove. 

Ready to roll

As we left Princeton the highway parallels the old roadbed for the Kettle Valley Railway which has been gone since 1989. The highway to Aspen Grove is a rider's delight with sweeping curves mixed in with sharp ones. This road demands your attention with a variety of speed and gear changes. If your head is not in the game, some of these curves can bite you on the backside. In the morning sun with very little wind the small lakes along the way shone like burnished silver. The terrain opens up with a variety of evergreen trees and grasslands. This is ranch country and is sparsely populated. I can see how it could grow on people - at least during the summer time.

We joined the Okanagan Connector east of Merritt, BC, on our way to West Kelowna. This is a four lane highway with gentle curves rising to 1635 metres in elevation at Pennask Summit before it drops down to the junction with Highway 97 south of West Kelowna. From the 110 kph speeds of the Connector we found ourselves in stop and go traffic all the way into Kelowna, and north to Kane's Harley-Davidson. It took us approximately an hour to make our way from Westbank to the dealership, a distance of 21 kilometres. Riding in stop and go traffic with temperatures hovering around 30C while wearing so leathers is not my idea of a good time.

Garry is trying to find a pair of spark plug leads for his motorcycle but no one seems to have the ones specific to his Heritage so we will have to check at Grizzly H-D in Missoula, MT when we get there. I am going to have replace my front tire after 34 000 kilometres.

Highway 33 from Rutland to Rock Creek is a spectacular road for riding. It is in good condition and snakes its way south for more than 120 kilometres. With very little traffic, we were able to maintain a good pace. While it is mostly uninhabited, there are some villages with names like Joe Rich, Westbridge, and Beaverdell. Beaverdell once had producing silver mine and the Kettle Valley Railway ran through it on its was from Midway to Penticton, The rails were lifted on this section of the railway in 1973 and most of the roadbed is now part of the Trans-Canada Trail. One of the oldest hotels in BC, the Beaverdell Hotel was built around 1864 and burned to the ground about 10+ years ago. It was sad to seen this bit of BC history disappear.

After 100 kilometres of relatively high speed riding we stopped at an ice cream bar for a break. This little business and a few others like it seem to be surviving in this village. I don't know how, but there is evidence of imagination, creativity, and resilience in these little places. 

I have no idea what Beaverdell Beat is.

After rejoining Highway 3 at Rock Creek we passed through Midway, which was so named because supposedly, it is midway between the coast and Alberta. This is the Boundary Country and in the early 1900s it was a hotbed of mining activity for copper, silver and gold. But copper was the big one. The copper smelter at Greenwood was one of the largest in the British Empire during World War I supplying much of the copper need for the war effort. At the end of the war, the bottom fell out of the copper market and the smelter was closed and abandoned leaving only a huge slag pile and the smelter smoke stack which still stands 100+ years after the closure. 

The town of Greenwood was established in the 1897 as a city. the population has dropped to about 700 today and it hold the title of 'Canada's smallest city'. The main street is a throwback to these times. It even has a toaster museum which gives my wife, Darlene no end of pleasure to mention any time the name Greenwood comes up.

The toaster museum in Greenwood.

Greenwood streetscapes

On a late afternoon everything was closed downtown. Even one of the local guys we met couldn't explain it, so we took our leave for the final 35 kilometres to Grand Forks where we find ourselves this evening looking forward to another great day of riding and scenery before we drop down into Montana and figure out what will come next. we rode 457 kilometres today and most of it was a real joy.