Kelowna Cycling Trail near YLW

It's quite ridiculous how time gets away. It's been 2-1/2 weeks since my Kelowna trip, "before the flood", to almost quote Atwood. Upon my return I had planned to blog about the new bicycling trail being prepared at the north end of Kelowna, but unfortunately exhaustion finally caught up with me (just a bit too busy these last 4 months) and I spent almost 3 whole days sleeping (my first sick day I was asleep for 20 hours!).

And then of course the NHL playoffs started to get interesting; "Go Jets Go!!"

The subject trail is reportedly going to trace the path of the former railway tracks between Kelowna and Vernon. Jeff and I have cycled parts of the Kettle Valley trail system three times in recent years, but last year we did the Galloping Goose trail instead because it seemed that the rest of the province was going up in smoke. Not to detract at all from the Goose, of course. That's a great trail!

But I'm actively searching for more reasonably close bicycle trails that are new to me, and I happened to notice a couple of years ago that railway tracks were being removed at the crossing to Kelowna airport. I've been following the (slow) progress since. That brings me to my recent work trip. My subject warehouse was only a 5 minute cab ride away from the airport; as such, no need for a rental car. Upon finishing my assignment I decided to walk a bit farther north to see if I could find the new trail. Thanks to WiFi on my smart phone, I did indeed find it. And I half considered walking it until I saw the 'no trespassing' sign. Instead I max'ed out my Point and Shoot zoom to be able to detect some sort of machinery wwwaaayyy down the gravel trail. At that point I backtracked and phoned a cab to return to YLW.

The railway corridor just south of YLW.

It was so hot that afternoon that the heat distorted my zoomed photo. I can't
even tell what kind of machinery blocks my path.

This may not be exactly where the trail
starts, but this is at least where it passes
under the highway.

There was an impressively large snow pack, to be sure in the adjacent mountains as the plane approached Kelowna.

The Kelowna snow pack in late April.

Wine country wakes up from its hibernation.

This was the view from the plane's approach back in March.