Another Long Weekend! This time, Canadian Thanksgiving.
Another weekend away means another 200 odd photos on my two cameras also!… not all uploaded on here obviously….
Friday arvo – on the road by 430pm – great, rush hour traffic!…. Destination – Posthill Lake, which is about 15-20 kms by gravel road from Kelowna, which is about 360km’s away from Vancouver….Loading up the Trusty Huscort this weekend were the usual suspects of Andrew, myself, Didier and newly landed kiwi Tom (another engineer/mountain biker hybrid!).
We made a stop in a small town called Merritt to fill up with Gas… it was pretty chilly, as the weather had been crass all week, with some snow on the upper sections of Highway 1 on which we were travelling on.
By the time we stopped for food in Westbank (945 pm), well food in the form of Dairy Queen, it was about 11pm when we finally rolled into the small lakeside cabin retreat… Damn it was COLD!!! Straight inside, a few beers and around the woodburner to warm up before hitting the sack.. what a long drive!
Thank god the fire was still going in the morning, we had a wee dusting of snow overnight…. the lake is situated about 1200m+ we reckoned… it was a good 25-30 minutes drive up the gravel road, similar to a ski-hill.
Parched from the beers last night, we got cleaned up and headed into Kelowna to meet Meryn and Michael who were en-route from Vancouver also. Being the ‘local’ who had spent some time here previous, we arranged to meet at the Kelowna Sails.
We finally found something taller than Didier!
After a bacon and egg breakfast at the local cafe – the owners insisted on selling us ‘scramblers’ even though we all ordered completely different items from the menu! – we headed to the local Kelowna trails.
There had obviously been some wild fires in the last year or so through here – made for some impressive scenery!
The forecast for the weekend was actually pretty grim – possibility of rain was over 50% for each of the three days… Saturday we had a clear run on the trails! yay!
Conferencing with the locals for some routes around the park…!
Luckily for Andrew, there were maps at all the major intersections!!!
“Less map, more riding we say!”
Tom and Didier awaiting the next instructions.
Michael on a nice rock roll-down….. great trail riding.
Tom and Michael enjoy some time out…
Pauli – on the Map
Didier – Contemplating his next move – Must say, for the first time out with us ‘hard outs’, he was doin great!… little did he know this was day 1 of 3 great xc adventures for the weekend!!! …. it’s a drug, watch out….
Meryn and Tom, watching Michael take off on some crazy tangent again!…. Maybe it was Map-time again (sifty/rest time)..!
Well, after 3-4 hours playing around in the forest, it was time to head back into town to pick up Jo – Andrews friend (another kiwi), who was joining us from Fernie (remember that place?)…. another body, another bike – back to the Log Cabin to wind down for the evening, after stopping for some liquid refreshments of course!
Hands up who wants Dinner?!
So -Sunday morning was an early rise – sort of. We planned to head out for a ride near Vernon which was about 30-40kms up the road, and get back to the cabin in time to put the Turkey on as it needed about 4+hrs of roasting.. damn big bird eh!… enough to feed the 7 of us!
Anyway – the weather gods had turned on another cracker of a day…. we were pretty glad to get away from the Vancouver Rain as it had been on all week… =/
Some more conferencing en-route…. the girls were obviously impressed!
The map-reading time does however allow Pauli to tinker with his crazy-spoked rear wheel!
Cloudy, but not rainy or cold…. perfect XC riding weather.. in the ‘Fall’ too… before the big snowfalls in this region!
more tinkering!
Some sifty jungle-style riding again!… random log cabin along trackside….
This log made Andrew see some stars…… whoops…
Back to where we started!… we did a wee jungle-ride loop after taking a left hand turn… this time, we were going to try the right… this was about 2hrs into the ride…
Okanagan Lake….
A quick steep climb put on some good elevation…..
Another summit for the group…
Turkey on, warm log cabin, all cleaned up….. lets stoke that fire. Rather more controlled than previous weekends fire efforts…. but just as FUN!….
Chewing over another great day of riding….Waiting for the oven to do its magic…. still light outside too!
man – how good was our timing – about an hour after getting back, the skys opened up and it pissed down like nobodys business!!!… oh well, the beer is cold.!
“Camp Mum Meryn” and Jo handling the turkey with care….
“gobble gobble”
Tom with the honours…
That big bird was just the perfect size for the 7 of us…. a wee bit of turkey left over, but not a lot really!.. the carcass somehow made its way into the firebox too!!….
Roll on Pumpkin Pie!
After the rainy night, we woke up to a crisp, warmish morning – the lake was ‘an oil slick’ according to Did’s….
The humble fishermen..
Some punter on the jetty looking at us – big tall fullas with funny hats, and a short asian thing with an orange hoodie/red hat… we must have looked funny…..
Andrew fishing the ‘slick’…. not too much action – a few rises, but that was about it.
We had left the tray of turkey scraps, and a cup of the lard/gravy…. the tray had been ravaged overnight, and some wee animal had a crack at the fat in the cup – obviously not that appealing even to them!!
After a good clean up, we shipped on out and headed back west of Kelown to Westbank for some more xc trail riding. Meryn and Michael had ridden there 3 years ago, so there wasn’t so much reliance on the map this time around!
Did’s cornering like a pro after the 2 day introductory crash course in MTBing!
Map and Andrew – oh what a lovely couple!…..
Taking a breather at the top – this was the highest we had been all weekend… a great climb.
I’ll appologise for the lack of DH photos from this day – man, i was having so much fun… and so were the rest of the group too! – there were fast flat out sections, nice and open where you could stay off the brakes.. and even make your own track in some places!.. the odd bhooter to get some air, and some nicely shaped burmed corners to roost out of… it was all good!
What summed up that downhill was Didier playing tail-end-charlie – pulling up about 20 seconds later saying “right, i’m hooked!!”…. yeah, there was something for everyone… loose dirt, hard rocky outcrops, canyon off the side, slow slow tech switchbacks (11 switchbacks of doom) and some awesome views across the valley (see below)…. just good fun.
Well, after such an awesome weekend of xc riding, great food (thanks Meryn and Michael for organizing it and inviting us all along!), even better company – 6 kiwis, 6 engineers, 1 South African, two lawyers, two adventure racers, one Chemist, one pyro, one farmer – That makes 20!…. Who needs tags?
Roll on the next adventure!
Vic
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