May 16th – May 20th, 2025
Participants: Joanna Gower (Wildflower Lover), Alexander Liu (Always Positive), Lukas Kunz (Quiet Force), Paul Ramu (Weather-Cursed)
Stats: ~200km, ~4,300m elevation gain (Saturday morning to Monday afternoon)
Route: Okanagan Falls->Okanagan FSR->Haynes Lake->KVT to Penticton->Okanagan Falls
Camps: Harmon Lake Rec Site (car camping), Idleback Lake Rec Site, Okanagan Boulderfields Rec Site, Okanagan Falls Rec Site (car camping)
Biking on the Gulf Islands seems to be stealing the show around here, so I figure I would share a trip report for my May long weekend gravel bikepacking adventure, and it will hopefully inspire others to switch to gravel!
Intro:
I usually do at least one multi-day bikepacking trip every year, 2025 was no exception and my vision was a challenging loop near Kamloops, hoping for great weather. I seem to struggle to find adventures that do not involve 80 to 95% of type-II fun and it’s exactly what happened this year, once again. Since I moved to Vancouver a couple of years ago, I have kept the biking trips out of the prime summer months, since it doesn’t rank high enough in my own hierarchies of activities. Well, this doesn’t work really well with our capricious coastal climate and my past two multi-day trips involved near-constant rain. When driving through Kamloops last year I learned that this part of the province features a desert-like climate and when I found out there was one of the best bikepacking routes in the Lac du Bois park just west of Kamloops, I committed right away to dedicate the May long weekend to this adventure as a 4-day trip! In my mind, the Lac du Bois-Tranquility loop would be a very sweaty affair with tons of swimming and camping in beautiful grasslands, which would put an end to a streak of type-II and type-III fun filled adventures!
The trip:
Fast-forward to mid-May 2025: the seven-day forecast is calling for heavy rain Saturday night. No biggie, is what we were saying at first. Then the forecast was calling for snow on the highway. Meh, was I thinking. On Friday (seven hours before leaving…), the forecast was calling for rain during the day too. I also see a message from Joanna saying that the robust bike she was planning to ride isn’t in a rideable state. The Universe seemed to be sending us a message and we decided to listen: the Okanagan was apparently spared from the rain storm that was hitting all of Southwestern BC and I found a rideable FSR (Okanagan FSR combined with Greyback FSR) on backroadstatus.com, so in a matter of minutes before 7:00 am all the plans were changed (before Alex was even awake!): a gravel loop in the Okanagan would replace the Lac du Bois loop. We all agreed this would be for the best, left the city in the afternoon, and camp at a lovely rec site south of Merritt. I risk sounding ignorant here but it’s worth it if even one person gets excited about this earth-shattering piece of information: THERE ARE LOONS IN THE WEST!!! I absolutely love that bird, seeing and hearing them bring me so much joy, and they might be the only thing I miss from my time in Eastern Canada, and for some reason I thought they didn’t exist East of Ontario (well, now there’s really nothing to miss about that place). We had a peaceful night, serenaded by the loon’s laughs and howls.
The loon paradise
On Saturday, while entering the Okanagan, seeing snow on the roadside sent chill down our spines. We suddenly realized that the route we chose might still be snow-covered (yes, it sounds very amateur to not have considered that sooner!). Satellite images confirmed our fears and a short portion of the route did look very white… From our not-so-thorough analysis we judged that the road was right at snowline and the snow we were seeing might have been a thin layer of fresh snow, so we would stick with the plan. We finished our drive to Okanagan and Skaha Lakes and parked the car just outside of Okanagan Falls, with blue skies and warm temperatures: expectations were high! After much faff (it was a VOC trip after all), we jumped on our bikes and not even twenty minutes in, we were served with a steep gravel road (Allendale Road, the one that leads to Okanagan Falls Rec Site, for those who have climbed at Skaha). That was a pretty harsh warm-up and some of us had to push the bikes. I brought my trusty gravel bike with 650×46 tires and it was perfect. Lukas had slightly thinner tires and he did great but Joanna’s 30-something-millimeters were perhaps a bit thin for this first section (derailleur issues didn’t help!). Unfortunately, the grade was relentless and we climbed almost a vertical kilometer in just over ten kilometers. The quality of the gravel improved and transitioned from small rocks and uneven surface to dust (and sometimes sand) but it was still challenging. The road was completely deserted except for one black bear spotted by Joanna, that was scared away by our presence. As we were busy burning our calves and thighs, the clouds rolled in and in a matter of hours the sky became grey.
Me, pushing the bike through a washed portion of the road
My optimistic self wasn’t worried as the possible rain wasn’t forecast until the beginning of the night. At last, the road merged with the Okanagan FSR, and looking at the quality of that newly found road (which I would call the Mamquam FSR of the Okanagan), Joanna’s theory was confirmed: the other uphill road across the drainage was the better quality one (a theory I was constantly fighting, not out of pride but to avoid creating frustration and discouragement in the team – riding the “wrong “road was improper planning on my end!).
Joanna, minutes before the weather would decide to hate us
Alex riding the Okanagan FSR
The grade was much better and we were finally able to move at a respectable pace, even though Alex’s legs kept cramping up. We were just over an hour away from our objective of the day, Idleback Lake Rec Site, when the rain hit us, much earlier than forecast. We sought shelter in the trees as the rain turned to hail and we could feel the temperature dropping (we were above 1500 m of elevation after all). We were back on our bikes for over a half hour after the rain stopped went it came back way stronger than before, so back into the trees we went, only five kilometers to the rec site. We were getting tired and I suggested we just sprint to the campground no matter how strong the rain was. So I turned my brain off and just flew through the last section of the day, and soon after me, Joanna and Lukas arrived too. It was pretty empty and several cars were leaving, chased off by the crappy weather. An hour later Alex was still not with us which was very worrisome, I could feel I was slowly plunging into hypothermia, barely able to move my fingers and my toes (running around the campground hoping to find Alex was no longer keeping me warm), to the point where I felt that getting back on the bike to look for Alex would actually put myself in danger. A kind soul offer to drive one of us on the FSR to search for our missing companion. I was getting ready to call when Alex finally showed up and we were all soooooo relieved! (The lesson learned here is to make sure everyone understands what the game plan is without any doubt).
My tent got wet as I was way too slow to pitch it, I was able to use my one spare underwear as a mop to keep things dry (never go too ultralight kids!). Dry, warm clothes and the sleeping bag warmed me up, as well as a hot soup directly from my bed (I know, cooking/eating in the tent in bear country isn’t good and is absolutely not recommended).
Joanna and Lukas having dinner in the rain, seen from the comfort of my sleeping bag
The next morning, we were awoken by a beautiful sun, which allowed us to dry our gear. I did a little demo on how to keep the feet dry in wet shoes by using plastic bags (a tested and proven system), and before we were getting ready to leave, the Universe decided to punish us again and sent us snow.
The snow flakes are even visible on the picture!
We had a couple of hours of mostly downhill which was absolutely horrendous for my always-cold hands and I had to stop every fifteen minutes to warm them up – grabbing my buttcheeks worked quite well to achieve that. Where the trail meets with the Greyback FSR, we decided to change the plan and extend the loop using the famous Kettle Valley Trail. We would therefore escape even lower temperatures and avoid riding above 1600 m where the chance of riding on snow was real. We had lunch by a lake, and were able to sun bathe a little.
Picnic by Haynes Lake
The Kettle Valley Trail (KVT) was a lot of fun, the low grade felt like riding on flat terrain the entire way. Occasionally, we would encounter giant puddles which my inner 5-year-old self found very fun to bike through.
Alex cruising through an above average-sized puddle
If you search the internet for the KVT you will likely see pictures of high trestles, those beautiful bridges made out of wood that allowed the trains to pass through Myra Canyon. We were super lucky that the short section of the trail we chose to ride included those trestles! Local crews and volunteers did an outstanding job rebuilding them after a massive wildfire burned down the area (between heavy logging and wildfires, it is a tough place to be a tree in that region).
Entering Myra Canon
Lukas on a trestle
Lukas on another trestle!
Joanna, exiting Myra canyon on the KVT
We were feeling a wee bit tired at the end of the afternoon so when we saw a rec site (Okanagan Boulderfields) just a kilometer off the trail we decided to stop there and enjoy our evening as the weather looked better. Lukas made a fire which elevated our spirits and burned several of our socks (turns out, if you put socks on a fire ring, they will burn. Embers will burn them too, who knew). Alex’s socks were too wet and didn’t burn. The weather was promising the next day so we went to bed happy!
The night was quite cold (the forecast at lake level was just above freezing…) and just as I was going to check out the boulderfields in the morning it started raining. We knew there was a lodge at Chute Lake, a mere fifteen kilometers away, and Joanna mentioned that she thought there could be a chance that pie could be on the menu: that gave Lukas and I a boost of motivation and we torpedoed towards that heaven on the heavily potholed road through rain, then snow, then slush and finally rain again. The feeling one experiences when finding a warm place while drenched and cold is simply indescribable!. Coffee and french toast tasted incredible, the wood stove and old books distracted us had us loiter there for almost a couple of hours. The rain had stopped while we were recovering and considering all we had to do (on paper) was to ride down to lake level, we were feeling better knowing we had done all of the hard work. We took a short detour to explore a 500-meter tunnel on the way down (there’s even a tchou-tchou sound that was played as we went through the tunnel!).
Us heading into the tunnel!
Okanagan Lake, from the KVT switchbacks
The Penticton approach was very fun and winded through the famous Okanagan vineyards, which reminded me of bike rides from my childhood in Frances’ Touraine vineyards.
Lukas spotted a fairly big snake. If you look very closely (top-left corner), there’s also a large silver T-Rex in someone’s backyard…
We had lunch on a Safeway parking lot, which raised customers’ eyebrows (Lukas has the world’s loudest camping stove…). Someone even tried to give us money, probably out of pity. After much loitering it was time to complete our journey, and ride along the very scenic Skaha Lake where the weather threw its last curveball at us, in the form of a frustrating strong headwind.
Skaha Lake, looking towards Okanagan Falls
We took it easy with a few breaks to enjoy our last few kilometers on two wheels in the Okanagan; wrapping up a multi-day trip always feels bittersweet to me, proud of what was accomplished and sad to leave a place with which I have connected.
200 kilometers and a lot of emotional and topographical ups and downs later, we finally made it to the car, proud to have accomplished this challenging loop!
We would spend the evening feasting around the fire at the Okanagan Falls campground which wrapped up a memorable weekend, which would definitely fall in the type-II fun category! It was a tough one but I’m glad we did it! I am grateful for Joanna, Lukas, and Alex for being flexible and staying positive throughout the trip! I’m also very grateful for all the amazing rec sites we’ve stayed at and feel very lucky and to live in a place where they are plentiful!
I do not have a GPX for our loop, but if anyone is interested I will be happy to provide more details! It is definitely a fun route with lots of good views and logistically fairly easy to plan.