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C&W RailbedCastlegar areaFebruary 20/05 Written by Kootenaycat Three of us went for a ride up the abandoned railbed between Castlegar and Christina Lake. We were interested to see if the snow was hard enough to enable us to get all the way to the Bulldog tunnel, which isn’t normally possible until late March. With all the rain at the end of January, then the freezing temperatures we’ve had the last couple of weeks, the snow was set up like concrete with just a skiff of powder from a snowfall a couple days prior. We had heard that Trails BC had hired someone to do some repairs to the trail, and we found that indeed they had. At the first washout, they had brought in quite a bit of rock to level off and straighten the trail. Personally, I feel this was a waste of taxpayer’s money, as the trail before was in quite good shape (after volunteers in previous years had repaired and made the washout passable), and the only traffic is bicycles, dirt bikes and atvs. 
We carried on up the railbed, and saw a few white tails at Sheilds. 
We also drove through three shorter tunnels as well as crossed three tall trestles. 
This third trestle really shows how high we are from the ground! 
These are the remains of a horse that some very stupid rider attempted to ride across one of the trestles. Apparently he must not have been a very intelligent horseman. The horse walked out about five feet before getting one leg caught between the ties, fell over the side and hung there until it died. The rider actually fell about thirty to forty feet to the ground below, and somehow managed to crawl up to the railbed and walk roughly ten kilometers to get help. I kind of wish that the horse had survived and the rider was left hanging from the trestle! 
We took this little side path at Coykendahl, which led down to a couple of barrels the CPR used to keep dynamite. 
We rode on, riding parallel with the Lower Arrow Lake the whole time. 
Evidence of Trails BC’s work was seen all along the way, including this rockslide, which used to be barely passable by atvs, which would be clinging to the rocks right on the edge of the cliff! They take the fun out of everything! 
Now, almost at the Bulldog Tunnel, we came to the second washout, which also had some extensive repair. It too was quite safe to ride before this work, and another waste of taxpayer’s money! We also attempted to follow the old water flume until we came to a section of ice that was broken and then realized we were walking on only about one to two inches of ice! We didn’t feel like getting our feet wet, so we turned around! 
Finally, we came to the Bulldog Tunnel, which is over a kilometer long, and has a bend at one end. I was amazed to see the ice formations outside the entrance, as well as the amazing icicles hanging inside. The floor was also covered in a thick layer of ice along with small mounds of ice, which made for an interesting ride across on the quads. Momentum was the key here! 
We carefully rode through to the other end, and were halted by a wall of ice at one side, and an eight-foot tall mound of ice at the other side. It was fun walking on the sloped ice trying to get beside the ice walls to have each other’s picture taken! I was the only fortunate person to NOT land on my butt! 
We backtracked through the tunnel, then ventured off on a side trail which leads us over top of the Bulldog tunnel, and branches off a couple of different ways. We decided to take the road up to Bulldog lookout as the snow was still quite solid, but now being on the west-facing slope, it was totally different! We only made it in a few hundred meters before starting to have troubles, so we stopped, and walked into the bush to check out the old switchbacks that the trains used while the Bulldog tunnel was being built. It’s amazing to see these structures still standing considering they were built in 1898! The tunnel was completed around 1902! 
After checking out the switchbacks, we tried to head back to the rail bed, but had to give each other a push to make it back up the slight incline to the shady road where the snow was harder! 
We eventually made it back to the trucks, but not before I stopped a few times to take some more pictures of the Arrow Lakes. 
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