Day 9: Kelowna, BC -> Bankeir, BC

Stats:
Date: May 24, 2023
Start: Kelown, BC (warm showers host)
End: Near Bankeir, BC (Chain Lake Recreation Site)
Distance: 100km

The day started with me taking forever to get ready.  At least I'm consistent!  My hosts fed me a breakfast of oatmeal, homemade bread, jams from the fruit in garden, and some very fine coffee.  We talked about many things and laughed a lot over breakfast.  Eventually I started to pack everything....and that took forever.

We took a picture together (see the last blog post), her and I shared a hug, and I set off with him as he wanted to show me the way out of town without just sticking to the highway.  We toured the neighborhood together and it felt nice to have someone to bike with for the first time in the trip!  We passed a large cliff above a high school where the students evidently climbed to spray paint their grade/year/ on the rocks for all to see.  I thought this was an EXCELLENT class project/tradition and just the thing high school students would do:

After about an hour we reached his turnaround point and we hugged and parted ways.  I got back on Highway 97 South and spent a long time going downhill into Peachland.  As I made a stop at a community post office box I chatted with a local who was picking up his mail.  Eventually I came to the bottom of the hill and turned into residential Peachland to see the town and enjoy some time by Lake Okanagon.

I was feeling pretty bummed about parting ways with my hosts, and standing there on the beach overlooking the sheer and rugged beauty of the hills and the lake...I cried.  I cried because the beauty of the place was just so overwhelming and intense.  I cried because I had just parted ways with two people I wished I could spend more time with.  I cried because I'd experienced such generosity and kindness and felt I didn't deserve it.  I cried because of how grateful I felt that all of these good things were happening to me.  I cried because I was happy for all of it.  For about 10 minutes, I cried.

I put my hand in the water and was surprised by how warm it was.  I quickly got back on my bike because there was so far to go today.  I rejoined the highway and continued to Summerland.  The highway was fantastic.  Some climbing, but nothing insurmountable.  When I reached Summerland I stopped for a lunch: a sandwich my hosts has sent me off with.  Again, I was overcome with gratitude.

After lunch I started out of Summerland towards the trail head of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail.  This was a path I've been wanting to take for years.  It connects Summerland to Princeton (and many other areas of the BC interior) via an old rail bed, which means it doesn't do any intense climbs.  HOWEVER....that does not mean that the approach to the trail itself doesn't have any climbs!  And I climbed quite a bit out of Summerland before I found the trail head...right beside the city dump.

Setting off on the trail I was happy to find pea gravel and peaceful surroundings.  The trail was in great shape and the history of the railroad is all around.  That didn't last.  Eventually it became evident that the trail wasn't a bike pathway and was instead a kind of old service road that is used by ATVs.  It was rocky - I'm guessing from the stone used for the original rail bed - and surprisingly sandy.  This made it a combination of bumpy and soft.  I bounced around on it quite a bit, and if I wasn't bouncing I was fishtailing and pushing through the sandy base.  It became very clear very quickly that this was not a pleasant bike path through the woods like it is to the East of Penticton.  It was a trail, and maybe a mountain bike would have been easier on it...but a touring bike was a tough slog.

But the day was still sunny and warm.  And the areas I passed through were rugged, rocky, and full of splendor.  The trail paralleled a river whose waters are currently a dark brown.  I can only imagine it's the spring melt that makes it look that way, but it was so brown that it would have made more sense if I'd seen Willy Wonka float past in a gumdrop canoe.

There were a few rock slides and a few washouts, but nothing that couldn't be walked around.  Someone had built a little bridge at one washout that took some careful navigating, but it broke the monotony of the ride.  The trail is dotted with signs for The Great Trail, which is Canada's coast to coast bike route.  It's a monument to the power of bureaucrats to create something on paper which does not exist in reality...which is to say I have feelings about it and the signs constantly annoyed me.

Perhaps if I had a mountain bike - or didn't have 50 pounds of errata - the trail would have been a more enjoyable ride....but I was on my touring bike.  The hard pack of the dirt highway between Summerland and Princeton was always within sight, but the perfectionist in me said I HAD to take the trail.  It was the entire reason I'd cut into the interior from the Trans-Canada Highway after all.  It was a slog.  As the day went on I got tired.  I pushed.  But the condition of the trail meant that going fast was incredibly bumpy and required a lot of energy...so I went slow.  Averaging somewhere between 7-11km/h, which felt like a deathly pace.

Eventually the trail forced me onto the road for a while.  I immediately got my second wind as I was able to go an easy 15km/h.  I popped my earbuds in for a morale boost.  And that is how I ended up listening to Rush Hour by Jane Wiedlin going about as slow as I've gone the entire trip, but with a smile on my face! (Another gem of a song from Mark!)

I cut back onto the trail and eventually reached Osprey Lake, the first of three campgrounds in this section.  I checked the time, saw it was now 7pm, and decided to push to the third campground.  I'd been very hungry for hours and the hunger was now gone, which meant I could bike till I dropped.  So I did....bike (I didn't drop).  Past Osprey Lake, past Link Lake, and I popped off the trail for a minute to see Bankeir, BC which is the small town for this area.  There I saw pieces of Bankeir's history.  Interesting historical artifacts.

At some point I saw evidence of....what I thought was probably a bear?!

I pushed on and eventually reached Chain Lake Recreational Area.  It was just past 8pm and starting to get dark.  I pitched camp, and walked out on a small dock on the lake and made my dinner of instant mashed potatoes.  They were salty and buttery.  It was magic food after 100km of grinding.

One of my favourite sounds is the wailing cry of the common loon.  I was hoping I would get to hear it again when biking through Ontario, but I was in for a treat.  There was at least one loon on Chain Lake, and as I sat in the friscillating dusklight it let out a long cry.  I instantly relaxed as it called multiple times across the water.  After tucking in I would occasionally hear it's calls, and it lulled me off to sleep.