Kettle Valley Railway

St. George’s KVR Trip – Day 4

Posted on by Smoke

The canyon day is always the best day. This is a pretty cool ride, even if it’s still completely flat. Lots of tunnels and bridges and old stuff lying around.

When you leave Princeton, you go through a tunnel underneath the highway to Vancouver, and on the other side you cross a bridge right away, immediately entering back into the “wilderness.”

There’s also this ochre deposit, which gave Princeton it’s original name of Vermilion Forks. Apparently the local indigenous types used to trade this stuff far and wide as it made the best paint in this part of North America. William looks impressed…

Riley in his Sears underwear model pose…

At he gazebo, it was time for life lessons. Here’ we’re discussing women’s anatomy, but in a purely scientific manner.


Conor Lees photo

Game on. I scared the CRAP outta Ethan inthe tunnel a few seconds after this shot. Your eyes are totally dazzled from the sunlight, so you can’t see anything in there. Well, except for the whites of Ethan’s eyes. It’s the little things that make life worth living….

Giddyap. Local cowboy and his pony (that almost took Pally’s head off. I guess the locals aren’t that used to gangs of bikers around here).

Some more wildlife. Frogs were easy to find this year. Maybe they’re actually on the rebound. This guy is about an inch long. Pretty sure he’s a Great Basin Spadefoot.

I was the only swimmer this year, although Pally did a little dancing in the water. David got his feet wet, too.

Yes, Jonathon, this means you.

Another indigenous species, the Greater Shoe Tree (piedaprotectus giganticus). Some of the fruit from last year is still there.

Even though we rode much further than the other group, we caught up to them in Tulameen, and beat them to camp by a considerable margin. Nice and hot out, so we had a nice late afternoon at Otter Lake, and enjoyed our last night out by staying up late by the fire with the guitar.

St. George’s KVR Trip – Day 3

Posted on by Smoke

OK, I think we’ve finished with the mayhem for this trip. Wel, before I say that, aI should tell you that after we unstuck the 3 ton yesterday, Andrew managed to have the trailer unhook itself on the dirt road back to camp.

Lucky guy.

Speaking of lucky guys….meet Dave, Riley, and Shai. They could have been in math class all week but no……they’re on a bike ride with me.

Today started mildly lame, but got way better as the day went on (as this stage always does). The occasional sandy section was a good place to get the slower riders up to speed.

This trestle marks the start of the good stuff. It’s also the place for the ceremonial “Trundling Of The Big Ass Boulder” whereby we really get things rolling. Tis particular T.O.T.B.A.B. got a lucky bounce and sent a 400lb rock right into one of the steel supports of hte bridge.

It was pretty cool.

Shortly after we broke for lunch at the tunnel and set up the rules for the “primes” (that’s pronounced “Preemes”). For those of you who don’t know, a prime is a sprint section in a longer stage that is worth some kind of bonus. We just used the honour system for ours, but anytime there was a worthwhile feature in sight, it was race time.

Here’s the boys racing for the gazebo at the top of the hill.

Travis was a bit too stylish to race, but he’s looking good so we’ll give him some arbitraty points anyway.

The “descent” into Princeton with the Hozameens in the background. That’s Mt Frosty in Manning Park back there.

Riley and a Ponderosa Pine.

OK, it was a long day. So long, in fact, that Quinn didn’t notice me taking this pic.

While Quinn caught up on some much needed beauty sleep, the rest of us sessioned some chunks of wood that Martin set up for us to play on.

Jonathon (above) was trying pretty hard there. He picked up the bunnyhop pretty quickly, but the skinnies were a bit tougher for him

Riley (below) practically lives on his bike, so he was trying to bunnyhop ONTO the skinnies.

Andrew isn’t an avid rider, but he was nailing everything. One of those naturally balanced guys. Check out that nice forward balance point. Textbook.

Shai just yelled louder until he got it.

Monica, meanwhile, continued to amuse us with many enjoyable anecdotes of Swingin’ London. She’s a great lady, and fun to be around. Plus the guys are all scared of her (god knows why, she’s tiny). I learned more about grownup beverages off of her this week than I’ve picked up in many a moon, I tells ya. If you’re nice, I’ll let you know about her tea recipe.

St. George’s KVR Trip – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

Well, we arrived late, so we figured a little sleep in might be in order. Besides, the other group had a huge day today so I had given orders for them to get going early.

By 10:30 I was starting to get a little worried though, even though the guys in our crew said they had some definite slackers in the other crew. The lack of communications and our reliance on the one vehicle between the 2 groups really became apparent here.

Luckily, Andrew showed up with the U-Haul (this is our 3rd one, for those of you keeping track) shortly after 11. Unluckily, he immediately sank it in a ditch. Those trucks are low, and for a guy who normally drives a compact, it’s not a surprise.

No amount of young gun effort wass going to shift a 3 ton cube, so I high tailed it for town while Martin and Monica (one of the Saint’s teachers along for the trip. She’s a gas, more about her later). I took the extra time to hop a lift up to Westbank to grab my truck so we could dispense with the 2 vehicle program.

Here’s an ad for ya. That’s Okanagan Towing if you ever need un-stucking. Even gave us a deal.

Meanwhile…back on the trail….


Conor Lees photo.

A boring section for the first day, and it’s soft and sandy too. Plus, no one (not even the guides) had done it before. Sort of like my first year doing this trip…

Ask Martin. He’ll tell you it was like eatin’ weiners.

At least our camp was a lot nicer this time.


Conor Lees photo.