April 30 – Giants Head Hike and Trout Creek Trestle

Today we drove about 1/2 hour north to the town of Summerland to hike up the Giants Head. It is a bump of rock in the middle of town.

To get to the top you have three choice. First you can drive up to the park gate. From there you can drive a narrow zigzagging road to almost the top and then hike 1/2 km to the very top. You can also walk/bike up the road or you can climb up what they call the Giants Head grind, which runs a straight line up the hill from the gate to the top cutting out all the zigzags.

 

We walked the road on the way up and took the Grind Trail on the way down. The very peak is at 820 m so we climbed up 270m (890 feet) in elevation. As you can see from the elevation profile in the picture above the road is a pretty steady climb with very few flat spots. We took a few breaks (for pictures of course) and it took us about an hour to get to the very top vs their suggested 44 minutes.

The first section was quite open with good views down to town.

A band of dark clouds was moving in. Fingers crossed for no rain. We never did get any.

We got into the trees for a while until we got this view down the west side.

Almost there.

Looking south towards Penticton. The square pipes on the fence poles point at local landmarks.

The photosphere.

Looking east at Naramata, where we hiked to the falls yesterday.

I walked along the edge to some other viewpoints.

Looking back at Jennie at the top.

While we had lunch it started to get sunny again, as the dark clouds move on.

There were two times when it seemed perfectly calm and then all of a sudden a whirlwind would blow across the top. We could watch the debris swirling around and being sucked up. I almost lost my hat the first time.

There weren’t many people here but we had a long talk with a retired geologist. He had worked and travelled to many places in the world so it was an interesting chat.

Heading back down The Giants Head Grind. The pictures always make it look flat. It was not. The knees got a workout as well as your toes being jammed into the front of your shoes.

Getting lower.

Jennie got quite a bit ahead of me while I stopped for pictures. You can just see a black dot a third in from the left.

The photosphere from here.

Almost back to the car.

Here is the start of the trail. It really discouraged us from using it on the way up, rather than the nice paved road.

While we were in Summerland I wanted to check out the picturesque Trout Creek Railroad Bridge, that is now part of the Trans Canada Trail. We could see it from the top.

There also happened to be a very good ice cream shop near it. We got a two scoop bowl that had 5 scoops of ice cream in it. Our friend from the top had beat us here and was working his way through a huge waffle cone.

Then the short walk to the trestle.

Jennie noticed that you could see through the ties so it was a no go for her.

Looking upstream on Trout Creek.

And downstream.

On the far side of the bridge it was possible to get an underneath view.

And of course a photosphere.

Looking back toward Jennie with Giants Head in the background.

And back to the car at Summerland Sweets.

A final look at Giants Head. I can sort of see a face in profile.

We could even see the flag pole at the top.

And home.

April 28,29 – To Penticton, Naramata Falls, Ellis Canyon

Yesterday was a grey day with a bit of rain for our short move north to the Holiday Hills RV Resort near Penticton.

This is a kind of expensive place for us but none of the other parks in the area got great reviews. It is a brand new “resort” and it shows. The 2018 Google earth view shows this location as a go cart track. They have dug 4 tiers into the hillside above Skaha Lake. Everything is just gravel now but the sites are large and the view is not bad.

A photosphere from the roof as well.

One of the great things about this place, and it is the first time I have seen it, is that every site is given a cable modem that plugs into the cable jack at their site. That mean that instead of 100’s of people trying to use the same wireless network, we each get our own. Our internet is just as fast as home.

Almost all of the site are here permanently. I am not exactly sure how we got in. Since the place is so new there is a lot of construction going on. I guess this guy really doesn’t like gravel.

It looks like they stay all winter as well since they close in the “basement”.

This guy arrived after us and within an hour he had this deck installed. I assume it was delivered prebuilt.

This is the first tiny home I have seen at one of these places.

Today was also rather gloomy but was just supposed to be cloudy so we did a couple of short hikes. First to see Naramata Falls and then to look at Ellis Canyon high up in the hills above Penticton.

It is only just over a kilometer into the falls. You follow the creek down in a deep canyon.

The water was really flowing. We had high hopes for the waterfall.

Jennie though this blob of foam looked like a birthday cake.

She tried to get it to float downstream but it just fell apart.

Some tiny ferns were popping up.

All along the trail was this plant that looked like small bamboo, with these pods on the end.

When you hit them they would blow off a puff of pollen. It took a few tries to get this picture.

Unfortunately we came to a spot where there were two bridges out. They actually looked like they had been removed. None of the websites I had gone to had mentioned this.

The choice was to go up and over a very steep rocky outcrop at river level or or climb up the canyon wall and take a trail that eventually came down by the falls. We tried up high first.

It wasn’t much of a trail and the gravel made it very slippery.

Jennie waited while I went to check the rest of the trail. You can see the village of Naramata and Lake Okanogan over her head.

It was a bit too much for her so we turned back to the lower route.

She decided that she would wait while I climbed over and took some pictures of the falls.

After I was over that outcrop, you can see her waiting patiently. She found some things to examine.

This is what I had to climb down, holding onto any available tree or root.

The canyon walls got almost vertical.

The photosphere from here.

I finally made it. The water was blasting over the falls but the view was obscured by a lot of trees. I didn't stay too long because Jennie was waiting.

And the photosphere.

Heading back to the car.

We drove into Naramata and found a spot to have lunch at the lake. It wasn’t a great place so I forgot to even take a memory picture.

Since it was still early we decided to do another short hike at Ellis Canyon. We had to drive back to Penticton and then 600 vertical meters up the valley to the trailhead. 600 meters in elevation change doesn’t seem like much but it sure seemed high when we were looking back down, as you will see in the later pictures.

The road was very steep with a lot of hairpins. Just when we thought were were getting out of town and into wilderness, we looked down and saw a massive new housing development being put up in a valley.

Then up a little higher we passed this.

Unfortunately they were doing drifting. Lots of engine revving and screeching tires. This was the “sound of nature” we heard throughout our hike.

Off we go.

From the parking lot the hike is just a short loop out to the Ellis Canyon wall for some serious straight down views

From down at my feet up to the horizon.

And the photosphere.

I guess someone has been climbing.

Jennie declined to come down to the edge.

Lots of wildflowers and moss for her to check out.

It sure looked like a long way down to Penticton.

The photosphere.

And then home.