Jan 18th and 19th. Land of rock and ice..!!! (Broken knee mountain..!!)

A day of bright sunshine , but not necessarily warmer temperatures took us down to Vaseux Lake bird area again.

(Link to website for this sanctuary..!!)

It is such a spectacular little conservation area right on the side of the highway (highways through the Okanagan is what would just be called a road anywhere else in the world because through the valleys there is generally one road…in and out……that was one of the big issues with the flooding late last year……there just are not many roads…because there are a lot of mountains..!!)

It was one of those blue sky days that we love…so we drove down hoping maybe to find some birds….wrong season I suspect. There were some swans on the lake…a couple of intriguing whirrs of wings through the undergrowth…but not much other than scenery to see.

From the south end of the area….on the north end of the lake….as you look down you can see the sheer cliff of McIntyre bluffs…..its kind of chilling to see just how vertical the drop is.

With nothing else in the plan for the day we decided to stop in Okanagan falls and take a look at the trestles…with a view to biking down (28km round trip) with some warmer weather.

With not much else for entertainment on this frigid day it seemed like a good idea to drive back up the east side of Skaha on the return to Penticton (highway 97…the main highway is on the west side)

Its a lovely road….a narrower, sinuating backroad (with, much as you would expect, a radically different vista). About a kilometre before the Penticton boundary, we spied a small parking area with some Conservation signage. Had to stop…..after some stone skipping on the lake (see ……here )

We checked out the sign…and I had a look on Alltrails cos I couldn’t believe that I had missed such a promising looking trail…..to find no entries on that trail.

So …I learned a new skill on Alltrails and drew my own trail map to follow. (Woo hoo..!!)

The trailhead has a big information board on the re-establishment of the bighorn sheep population.

The trail itself was promising it started out with a fairly level trail heading south along Skaha……with the kind of views we have come to expect…!!

There was a little bit of bushwhacking to get us all the way over to the trail we were trying to follow…..

The trail was still making some promises We met a couple coming down that said thee was a bunch of mountain sheep at the base of the rock face………

We were headed in a slightly different direction tho…..It was yet another one of those walks where the terrain kept changing as we went up.

…and of course…the breathtaking views …

It also got snowier the more we climbed……but as it was a fairly steep ascent we were getting warmer rather than colder……as you see progressive layers of clothing being shed…!!!

The path became a rock face. A rock face interspersed with icy patches and the grade was still increasing at this point. (By this point we are both laughing out loud at our ambitions…!!!)

At this point, following someone connecting his kneecap (loudly) with the rock ‘path’, we decided it might be a better idea to go in another direction and follow a more lateral path…!!!(Editor. The peak in the distance of the photo above left was our goal, approx 4km of ice and moss covered smooth rock. The tap on my shoulder from mother nature was enough to convince me to try again another day )

So in the interest of ‘living to hike another day!!” ……we changed the plan and struck out a bit more sideways.. This tracked us back to the very end of the trail we did with all the pictographs .

…and going down is always a bit harder than going up…….!!!

The lake is so impressive, even from the lower elevations….

Another very satisfying day out.

EXTRA PIX