March 18. Skaha …Burnt Sauerkraut.

I am always on the hunt for something a little different and on Alltrails. Skaha Ward 1 Trail caught my eye when we first arrived in Penticton, but it was closed after some extensive wildfire damage in the fall. ( and the trail is actually called Sauerkraut.!!)

This was likely going to be our last hike before moving on and as I was casting around for something a bit special, I spotted that this one no longer indicated that it was closed. Excited, I downloaded the route that someone else had followed the day before us. It seemed like a reasonable way to make sure we were on a passable trail. …In Skaha ( from experience) there are many spots where…without a certified trail one runs the risk of walking off the edge of a cliff……

So back up to Skaha Bluffs Park……the gate to the parking lot was open (small celebration…cos the road up to the parking area is about a kilometre of straight up…)

The trail was not technically hard…but we were aiming for about 12km, which is further than we have hiked in a while. Its a very pretty trail through the big ponderosa pines.

The trail weaves ever upwards, switchback after switchback. Not the hard slog that a lot of these trails can be…….more of an uphill meandering..!!! With some lake vistas and impressive rock structures of the bluffs as the trail winds around them.

Eventually we got to the start of the burn. At the edges it is small areas where one or two trees are charred….and a few around about show signs from the heat stress…..but fairly limited damage.

There were odd holes in the ground…….we realised it was where large trees had burned and smoldered until the entire root system burned to ash. We assume that at Skaha the wind carried a lot of the ash away…(unlike the burned areas in Cathedral park where the ash lay thick around the area.) Anyone who has ever burned out a tree stump is probably familiar with this…but it was all new and fascinating to me…!!!

Persevering up the trail led us through a more devastated part of the burn. Spooky forest. You could see the scalding the rocks had taken. On of the big trees by the path had burned so hot the sap boiled out leaving its burned shell covered in large orange beads. Almost alien looking.

The next section of the trail brought us into the ruined forest. Stark black skeletons and as you look to the hill behind, you can see the burned toothpicks of what was once the forest further up.

Its fascinating how quickly mother nature ushers in new growth….lovely fronds of pussy willow stretching their way out of the ruined blackened stumps of the willow trees of last year..!!

The far edge of the loop had clearly experienced a fair bit of intense heat. the rocks had a scalded look….and the ground was soft……we had to be careful to stick to the trail as the ground appeared unstable around us at times……and there were the gaping holes where the tree roots used to be.

It got noticeably colder partly because it was an overcast day, but mostly because of the elevation and the complete lack of shelter from the non existent trees. So the coat and hat went back on…..

The outer loop took us back around to the lake side of the rocks, rewarding us with some pretty spectacular views both down Skaha, and up Okanagan.

There was a bit more burn on the other side too….but not nearly as severe as the other side of the ridge. Another impact of so much tree death is much more soggy ground….soft, soft ground without the vegetation to suck up the moisture and stabilise the ground.

A long walk, a good walk….and some interesting sights.

It was a bit hairy up around the far end of the loop, but I was very pleased to have been up into the burn area. It’s so not what you expect …..your imagination has an idea of what you will see……but the reality is that just as much as the visual feast around you is the feeling of being there. The quiet, cold desolation was new, with soil underfoot where all the leaf litter of the forest floor had burnt away.

I hope you find it as interesting to see this very different sight, a variation on the beautiful vistas we usually show.

Extra pix.