Wednesday, May 14

First stop was Beaverdam Provincial Recreation Area to stretch my legs and walk around for a bit. This would be a really nice area to stop for a campfire cookout some day. I never took any photos of them, but there were probably 10 or so day-use sites here, most right along the water.

The next stop was Abraham Lake (famous for the frozen methane bubbles in the winter). It was quite windy by this time with some on-again, off-again rain. The water was very blue and I was able to climb out onto some bedrock that jutted out into the lake. It’s from there that these pictures were taken.

On the way to Kimberley, I passed the continental divide at an altitude of 5382′. It is the point where water flows to the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other. I don’t remember ever having seen it before, although I’m positive I’ve driven that stretch of highway in the past.

Once I arrived in Kimberley, I checked in to the North Star motel. It was one of my favourite hotels on the trip; it’s an older building but super quaint with a ton of personality. The proprietor gave me a mini loaf of homemade banana bread which I had for breakfast the next morning – it was amazing.

Once I was checked in and had hauled all my gear into the room, I found a nice hiking trail – the Jimmy Russel to Sunflower Hill Loop. The website says it’s easy but I feel like this was another example of internet commenters falling over themselves to announce how much better they are than most – it was most certainly not easy. It’s a solid moderate. It was beautiful, though!

After the hike, I went back to my room for a quick shower and then went into the downtown for a sandwich and fries at the Pedal & Tap restaurant. While I was eating, I searched up an EV charging station in town that happened to be right along some short walking trails, so I went there after supper and plugged in for an hour and a half or so while I went for a short walk. I saw some deer here that were not bothered by me in the slightest.

After that, it was back to the hotel room. It had been a long day and I was pretty tired.

Thursday, May 15

I didn’t have any stops along the way planned for today so I just played it by ear and pulled over anywhere that caught my eye. I stopped at a big-rig brake check area at the top of a pass and checked out a community-use log cabin that had seen a ton of snow over the winter:

Continuing on, I stopped at Nancy Greene Provincial Park just to stretch my legs but noticed there was a trailhead sign so I put on my hiking boots and locked up the car. I’m really glad I did – there were a few boggy and peaty sections and parts of the trail still had a decent amount of snow but it was a really peaceful hike around the lake.

Once I got into Kelowna, I got in touch with a friend from the Booster Juice days that lives there now. I had a bit of time before he and I could meet up and go for supper downtown so I went down to the waterfront for short walk. The area I went to had only a short walking path but it had a small bird preservation area that was nice and quiet.

After a nice meal and some catching up, I headed back to the hotel to get a good sleep for the big day I had planned next.

Friday, May 16

I woke up pretty early this morning but realized that I didn’t have to when I found out the breakfast restaurant in the hotel parking lot didn’t open until 8. On the bright side, though, was the fact that it was probably the best breakfast that I had on the entire trip.

I made a couple stops along the way; once for coffee and the best Nanaimo bar I’ve ever had, the other for a quick lunch and a tour through a gift shop. I got Marie a quaint little stuffed bunny named Shabby Buttons.

Eventually I found the turnoff from the highway that I was looking for and started the ascent up to the trailhead. The road was in pretty decent shape and was just switchback after switchback. There was definitely not room for two vehicles side by side except in a few wider areas meant for pulling over, but I didn’t meet anyone coming down the mountain while I was going up so there were no issues. When I got to the trailhead in the last photo, I backed my car out of the way and grabbed my backpack with essentials and headed in.

I probably could have driven further on the old work trail (and there was plenty of evidence that people do) but it wasn’t too long before it was washed out from the spring runoff – and besides, I didn’t want to disturb nature any more than it already was. The view from this height was incredible and I was only going to be climbing even higher.

Eventually I came around a corner and saw the first evidence of the mine’s past workings – a chute that would have dumped right on the trail. Presumably at one time, trucks would have been loaded here to head back down the mountain.

Also on the same level and just further on from this chute was a collector tower. The roof had fallen in what looked like years ago and plugged up the chute.

Finally I came to the first of the mine entrances that I found. I was obviously not the first person here in recent years – the door was graffiti’d and there were a couple of empty drink cans on the ground nearby. I put on my headlamp, got a flashlight out of my pack, and headed in.

The air was cool and had a bit of stale smell to it, but I could feel that it was moving so I wasn’t concerned about CO or any other gases. There a couple drifts that appeared to have been backfilled and another that looked to have been blasted down. There was nothing that led me to believe that it was fresh so I’m guessing it probably happened when the mine was being abandoned. I did not enter any of these areas but I did clamber up one of the muck piles and took a picture of the wood and broken pallets that had been left behind.

Another drift came to a dead end but I could see where the wall had been drilled in multiple places – I’m assuming they were taking samples to see if there was any evidence of the continuation of a vein.

Once I had explored all that was accessible from this entrance, I headed back out.

Once I exited here, I had two options – one was to carry on a small rocky, and barely visible path that carried on past the entry door but had a pretty sheer drop on one side of the trail, and the other was to scramble up beside the chute to see what was up there. I decided to carry on down the barely-visible trail which ended up climbing steeply up the mountain once I had gone around a corner. It’s tough to tell from the photos but once I got to the top (completely out of breath) I realized that there had once been wooden stairs connecting the two levels.

That was the most strenuous climb of the entire day but the payoff was pretty worth it. Unlike everywhere else I explored this day, I found another entrance to the mine that had no evidence of anyone else having found it.

The tunnel didn’t go very far back and I don’t recall there being many (or any?) splits but it did have a few of these chutes from higher levels. There were two and both were filled with much and debris and I couldn’t see up either of them. I never did find another spot in the mine that would have fed either of the chutes (although there were a few tunnels higher up that I wasn’t comfortable entering).

From here I made my way back down to the initial entrance I had found, and scrambled up along that first outdoor chute. When I got to the top, I could see where there once again were wooden stairs that had long since deteriorated and rotted away. There was also a wire rope guardrail and a funny area where they had porcupined some drilling rods into the rock.

There was another entrance into the mine from up here as well; however, like the first entrance I found, there was a lot of evidence that people have explored this one.

This level of the mine had a lot of opportunities to access another, higher level. I didn’t, though – I just didn’t feel completely comfortable with it so I played it safe. The last photo doesn’t show it well, but I had climbed up the ladder (but stayed on it) and took a photo into the area it went up to. It was an absolutely massive cavern and it’s a shame the camera couldn’t capture it well.

There was an area on this level that had a fair amount of water dripping from the roof. Made me think that in a few thousand years, there’ll probably be some pretty spectacular stalactites.

After exploring everywhere I was comfortable exploring, I made my way back out.

From here, there was one more path leading up the mountain again, so I followed it and I did not expect to see what was waiting. An entire massive area had been blasted out of the side of the mountain and then swiss-cheesed with holes. It was spectacular. There was a lot of evidence that plenty of other people thought so too, as there were a lot of empty drink cans, signs of fire pits, and spray painted “GRAD 2023” messages.

Toward the back of the cavern there was an area that had been shored up so I steered clear of that (although other people certainly haven’t) and instead found another small tunnel system.

It was quite small and didn’t go very far back into the mountain. There was a lot of water in here too and the dripping was quite creepy.

I really wanted to keep exploring the area because I’m sure there were more entrances into the mine but it was beginning to get late in the afternoon and I had a fair bit of driving yet to get to Peter and Garth’s. The hike back down to my car was really nice, this whole area was just beautiful. I saw a deer on my back down and a corral. I’m certain that the corral was much more recent than the mining activity so I’m curious what that was about. There were a lot of trails that branched off and went further up the mountain and I wish I had more time to explore. Maybe another time.

And that was that. The drive to Peter and Garth’s was completely uneventful from here and I sort of made a point of just getting straight there – I didn’t stop along the way. I was so tired after this day and I crashed pretty hard that night.