Holidays!

I am lucky enough to have five weeks of holidays this summer and I have kicked them off with a bike trip into the Kootenay region of BC. I am currently in Christina Lake, resting my legs and catching up on things you can't do from the seat of a bike.

I left Vancouver on July 22nd and rode along the north shore of the Fraser River to Hope, BC. For the most part it was a flat and easy ride. In Hope I met up with my friend Norm and we picked up the Kettle Vally Railway, which snakes it's way through canyons and along river beds to Midway, BC. Most of the trail is in pretty rough shape and we had a couple gruelling days. Pedaling at 7km/hr and limiting your vision to the three feet of rock and sand in front of you gets old pretty quickly. In the end we took a number of roads that parallel the worst parts of the trail in order to satisfy our need for speed. Both from those roads and from the railway itself, we were rewarded with some impressive views.

Norm looking out over the Coquihalla Canyon

Cooking up dinner JUST outside of Princeton. It wasn't until night fall that the house lights on the cliff behind us indicated how close to town we were.

The Country east of Princeton

The view from Giant's Head in Summerland

Slow regeneration after the forest fires of 2003 south of Kelowna

Myra Canyon, where the trestles were caught in the forest fires. All of them have been replaced and were reopened this year.

Midway Station, end of the line.

Tomorrow I am headed in the direction of Bountiful, BC - Canada's polygamous community of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. It should be pretty crazy.