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Trepanier TrailsKelowna AreaMarch 17/08 Written by Greg After getting up early for yesterday's ride, Dirtygirl and I decided that since there was only the two of us this time, we'd sleep in a bit because nobody was waiting for us, then check out Crystal Mtn as it was closer than our originally-planned destination in Penticton. It promised to be a nice, sunny, leisurely day of riding. There was still a bit too much snow at Crystal, so we wandered down to Trepanier instead. I phoned our two emergency contacts to let them know about our change of destination, in the event we didn't make it out. The main trail system that I'd ridden in the past was now blocked off and had "Private Property - No Trespassing" signs all over it, and the land at the trailhead was in the process of being cleared. So we passed it by and hit the trail that follows the fence that you can can see from the 97C. We followed it to the first turn-off, and to our surprise, that trail was also marked "Private Property". Dagnabit! We turned around and got back onto the fence trail, and continued on. It was more difficult after this point, as it was not a well-travelled route. We were totally visible from the highway, and a few people honked at us as they drove by. Dirtygirl waved at them. :) It was steep and off-camber in sections, and both of us got into some difficulty in different spots. I scraped one of the reflector stickers and damaged a plastic bumper corner when I dragged it against the wire animal fence while off-camber between a tree and the fence. We spent some time clearing tumbleweed from the path. An off-camber rock garden lay between us and the graded road just 100' away. We walked to the graded road; I recognized it from a previous trip, and realized that going left on the road would take us to the previously-mentioned Private Property sign, and going right would take us under the 97C to a locked gate and then pavement. So rather than risk several roll-overs and just have to turn around and do it all over again, we decided to turn around right there, which we did after a short break. It took us over an hour to travel about 2.5 kms in and 2.5 kms out. Hard work, but definitely fun riding. We rode back past the first trailhead, and there was now a crew there working with a tractor, dump truck, and semi. We rode past them and accessed a trail system near the start of the Trepanier road, and spent almost an hour trying to find a trail that would allow us to access the "good" trail system behind the No Trespassing signs. We found a bunch of white-tailed deer, but the trail they led us to was a deer-only trail and we ended up in the middle of an off-camber hillside with no trail in sight. We followed our GPS track back to the last known trail location and finally got down off the hill. Good old reliable GPS! We swapped quads at this time, so Dirtygirl could compare her stock Can-Am 400 to my Can-Am 650 with it's 27" Bighorns and greater clearance. We rode back to the truck, looked at the guys working, then looked at each other. It was too early to quit riding, but there were no more trails we could ride. Dirtygirl wondered if we could ask the guys if they'd let us ride through and access the trail system. I said "Take your helmet off and go ask him!" She did, and he said "No problem!" YEAH! We got onto the "good" trail system, and scooted on up. Lots of white-tailed deer in this area, several groups of them bounding through the forest and watching us warily from the brush. A short while later, we got onto the trail that branched off the fence-line, at a point AFTER the "Private Property" sign. But now we had permission to be there, so we grinned at each other and kept going. We soon hit snow, but nothing we couldn't handle. After one branch, I nailed the brakes as two mooses walked across the trail in front of me! Wow, they're big when they're up-close and personal! Dirtygirl came up behind me, and I told her about the mooses and got her to lead so she could have a chance to see them. They were a short distance into the bush, watching us from behind trees. We turned off our quads and walked along the trail, our boots crunching in the snow. As we moved, they moved as well, circling to keep the trees between us. There was a large chocolate-brown moose, and a smaller lighter-coloured moose. Probably Momma moose and her calf. Very cool. This was Dirtygirl's first moose sighting, and my third. After quietly watching them for a bit, we continued on. We eventually popped out on a powerline cut, which I recognised from a previous ride. I was happy as I knew we could access the powerline from a different location and wouldn't need to pass through the private property to ride these trails. After a quick chat on the powerline, Dirtygirl headed down the powerline trail. I tried to follow, but discovered that I was stuck in the snow! I rocked her quad back and forth, sawed the handlebars, but nope, I was high-centered on the skid plates. I got off and started stomping down the snow in front of the tires, and as best as I could beneath the quad. By this time, Dirtygirl had gotten her forward progress stopped by snow, and had looked back and found that I wasn't behind her. She came back and by that time I was finally able to move with some effort. We parked our quads on a treed trail that branched off from the powerline access; it had less snow so it wouldn't be a problem to turn around. We decided to eat our lunch here. Sandwiches from Tim Hortons! My Coke was warm from sitting in the Can-Am's exhaust-heated trunk, so Dirtygirl suggested I bury the bottle in the snow to cool it. That worked great! After lunch we decided to turn around as it was starting to get late in the afternoon. No problems on the way back, other than one spot where Dirtygirl almost got sucked into a tree well and I put her quad into a snowbank to avoid hitting her. She repositioned her quad and headed off down the trail without even looking back; good thing I wasn't stuck! lol Dirtygirl stopped at one of the forks in the road, as she wasn't sure which direction to go. I said we should go "that" way, but she said the GPS didn't agree. I was darn sure I knew which direction we had come, and verified it by spotting the Bighorn tire tracks in the snow. I am guessing that the GPS error was being caused by the tree canopy. Darn unreliable GPS! By the time we arrived back at the work site, the work crew had left and had placed cement barriers across the "driveway". But it was no problem for us to ride the quads up and over the dirt embankment onto the road, without causing any damage. It's sure nice to go riding on a weekday. We didn't see any other vehicles or people on any of the trails. Sorry, we were just having fun riding, so we didn't take any photos. |
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