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| Francine above the town of Penticton BC and Okanagan Lake. On the way to the Dairy Queen bench. |
Today is our last day and we head home from our Ski/Bike vacation. Kevin has to work tomorrow. We are so glad we brought our bikes. The rain we have had in the mornings has made for powder conditions on the trails. Everything has been damp, tacky dirt. If we come back, we will never have it this good. If you can't have powder on the ski hill, then let's have it on the trails.
Kevin was a little tired when he woke up on this sunny morning, and wanted to skip riding and just head home. Francine was having none of that. She insisted on doing a little ride then. We decided to hit Campbell Mountain, right in Penticton.
Drove out the road to the dump, which was sure busy. We were wondering if it was opening weekend or free dump day. Luckily some guys were getting ready for a ride, or we might have missed the parking on the side of the road. They pointed out the red M?????? gate that we ride thru. I assume a nice, private property owner, that allows biking. Can we also mention that everyone in Canada is soooo friendly. We could have ridden with these 3 guys, but we weren't quite ready. They were on a time schedule, and we were kind of tired.
Made our way up hill for a bit before we realized we forgot both the paper map and Francine's cell phone which had a map on it. Oh well, we would be riding blind. Neither of us wanted to ride back down to the car. So, we made our way out "Reservoir Road" and did some route finding after hitting "Tower Road" going straight up. We found a tiny trail that started switchbacking up, and realized we were on "Sufferin to DQ", a nice, narrow trail. DQ stands for the Dairy Queen bench on a lookout/ 3 way intersection viewpoint. Stopped here to admire the view and eat a bar. Next, we went left thru the dip and started climbing on "Chicken Noodle trail", another buff, narrow trail, to the top to the radio stations and Tower Road. Without a map and no trail signage, we weren't sure where the trails were or if we would get stuck on a super steep trail, so we backtracked on "Chicken Noodle trail" to the first intersection heading down. Here we saw another super friendly Canadian, who said that would be a fun downhill. We thought she called it Chico's downhill. Later, at the parking area, we found out we misunderstood the girl with her Canadian accent and it is actually called "She Goes Down". This was a damp, tacky, narrow, bermed, downhill ride. It crossed Tower Road and continued the fun romp down the hill. At an intersection, we went right to hit a jump park. At the end, we climbed back up the road to find our trail. At this point, we ended up on a wider trail, more likely "Campbell Downhill". This descended to the Tower Road we had been at earlier in of the day, and retraced out steps back to the car. Awesome ride. 6.87 miles.
Now we head home to the Pass, where we are sure it will be raining.
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| Francine reaches the Dairy Queen Bench |
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| Downhill fun |
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