A bear!!! Our first on this trans-Canada journey. OK, it wasn’t quite on the trail – the young grizzly crossed Highway 3A in front of us as we drove from our overnight spot in Nelson to the start point above Christina Lake. But it counts …
Some hills are nasty pointy things. Others grind away at you over long distances of low-grade niggle like a toothache. Today started with a 36km toothache. The up part was pretty, especially above Christina Lake, where our wonderful roadie for this trip, Liz, dropped us off. But it was a long grind nonetheless.
This last of the long BC Railway trails for us is dotted with storyboards and picnic spots. But we barely stopped until the summit at the Farron siding summit. This was the turning point for the pusher engines which shunted the steam trains all the way from Grand Forks and Castlegar. These were the longest pushing hills on any railway in North America as we learnt during a chatty encounter with the president of the trails club in these parts.
Being an old train track trail, this Columbia and Western Railroad Trail never gets steeper than 4%. But it doesn’t have to – sheer distance and consistency on the loose gravel had our legs crying by the top. It’s also the cleanest trail we have seen near a town. Just one beer can to spoil it.
We saw more people than we are used to, including a couple on the most heavily packed bikes possible, who admitted they had shouted at a bear that was foraging below a trestle (and out of harm’s way) to scare it off 🤯).
From the Farron summit the trail became more fun (downhill for a matching 36km!) and varied. One 900m long tunnel (pitch dark and freezing cold) was followed by its shorter cousins and coupled with trestles and a beautiful long stretch above Arrow Lakes. On these lakes, which stretch for 220km into the Columbia River, the sternwheel boats that were replaced by the railways made a return to deliver supplies for the iron horse that threatened their extinction. Here in this countryside the flowers are pretty and the chipmunks and chatty. It’s a land of pioneers and frontiers and soaring rugged mountains, tall trees and cobalt lakes.
Until Castlegar. Entry to the town from the north-western end passes a Canadian Pacific yard and a smelly pulp mill. But the town itself makes enormous efforts to be charming. Flower boxes are everywhere, a sculpture walk entertains pedestrians and we were treated to one of the best Indian dinners we have had in Canada at Cuisine of India. We hit the sack in the humble Chameleon hotel early to ready ourselves for tomorrow’s onslaught of single track along the Kootenay River into Nelson.
Today 88km
Climb 740m
Total distance 1167km
#thegreattrail
#transcanadatrail
Trans Canada Epic 