Camping at Champion Lakes

One of my favourite BC provincial parks is Champion Lakes, near Fruitvale.  It's far enough away from the highway to get away from traffic noise, there's always wildlife to view and the lake is refreshingly cool, but not so frigid that is painful to go swimming.  Last week I spent a couple of days there with Andrea and boys.  We discovered there is a big rock out in Third Lake which acts like a barrier reef and is home and space to some rather plain looking fish.  But it's fish and our boys like fish right now.   We'd heard that there was a mother moose with 2 young in the Second Lake area; alas we did not see them.  But we had a loon calling and calling during our entire time there.  Swimming, biking, hiking and eating marshmallows were favourite activities.  The boys are also enjoying some of the Hardy Boy mysteries; the picture below shows them listening with attention.

I really lucked into the campsites.  It had the FULL sign at the highway but I went up anyway and someone had left early so I got the site - it had a lovely lookout over Second Lake where we could really hear the loon well.  The next day we had to move sites but lucked in again to one site which could not be reserved because of some internet glitch.  And even the mosquitoes weren't too bothersome!   I'm happy to see our parks being used.  It may get people a little more in touch with nature.  

Lupines and Gallardia

It's past the middle of July and I'm finally posting.  We took a wee trip to the west and spent a bit of time on the KVR - the Kettle Valley Rail Trails.  It began with a bike ride from Coalmont towards Princeton which was a very scenic bit of territory.  I'd highly recommend it.  We also biked, later in the day, from Princeton toward Coalmont so pretty much covered that section of trail.  We had planned a bit of a bike ride north of Otter Lake but the provincial campground was full and we ended up biking along Otter Lake and a bit north of it.  Not the nicest trail in terms of a busy lake in summer.  Also the dirt bikes and ATVs frequent the trail.   Here's Dave at the bridge where we turned around north of Princeton.  

Why this title?  The next day I did a bike from a place on the map called Jura downhill towards Princeton.  It was a very fine ride, all downhill, through farming country with good views of the Similkameen Valley and some rocky peaks in the Cascades.  The best part was the wild flowers, however, which speaks for the title.  My picture didn't really work out that well.  Take this trail in the early part of May and you'll enjoy balsalm root blossoming all over the hillsides.