Saturday 9/17 : Boundary Country

 

TCT along a tractor path in farmer's field

Saturday, 9/17/2022

We were greeted with more nice weather today.  Sunny and fair, autumn-like temps.  Today we traveled from Grand Forks to the Christina Lake area.  The nature of the trail changes as we migrate away from the rail trail for awhile today.  The TCT travels through farming fields;  I always enjoy areas where the trail becomes just a dirt path, reflecting that what looks like an innocuous tractor path actually is part of a network which becomes the longest trail in the world.  It is impressive to think about the undertaking that the TCT is.  It is a combination of rail trails, other trails, backroads, and in some areas, major highways, that span the nation. In this area it is just a path through various farms along BC Highway 3.

Sometimes, possibly to mark off the end of one farm from the next one, there are gates which need to be negotiated.  They are locked, but able to be opened, by the cyclists by dismounting the bike. Get off the bike, unlock the gate, walk the bike through, then lock the gate behind you.  There were probably 7 or 8 of these gates.  This is an example of the courtesy that should be shown by travelers, as the path is crossing owned property.  A disgruntled land owner, could easily lock his gate with a padlock, and the tourists would have to leave the trail, find a road, to continue, etc.  Happily, no padlocks today for my passage!

I recall that at one point, I had stopped and got off the bike to take a breather.  After a bit, I looked down, and I noticed a snake was on the ground very near my feet!  I backed away, and got on the bike.  I'm pretty sure it truly was a snake, and not just a branch from a tree.  But after that I started imagining lots of snakes, that were probably just branches.  This was the closest call so far on  my multi-year adventure of  a bad encounter with some wildlife.

One other interesting aspect of the TCT in this area is the nearness of the USA border, which is the 49th parallel of latitude.  Using my GPS device, I stopped at the point where the TCT comes closest to the USA border.  It was less than 1200 feet away.  90% of Canadian Citizens live within 100 miles of the US.  So far since my start in Victoria, I  yet have traveled further than 100 miles away from the US.  (My furthest northern point on the trail is in the Kelowna area near Myra Canyon.)


Locked gate - or maybe I should call it an unlocked gate

Restaurant in Grand Forks - Formerly Train Station

Fisherman in the Kettle River

Comments

  1. AudreyJuly 24, 2025 at 6:14 AM

    I very much enjoyed eating at the Grand Forks Pub (train station). I had "liked" them on FB and still get advertisements of menu items in my feed. If I recall Grand Forks is where you got your bike repaired.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Math.Guy on 2 WheelsJuly 29, 2025 at 2:08 PM

    `Yes, Audrey, that is correct. I don't recall what I needed to have done. But I knew a bike shop would have the right tools, and by getting there right when the shop opened, they took care of it for no charge.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Kilometers: Victoria to Esquimalt

Image
  Symbolic start: back wheel starts the journey made wet from the  salt water of the Pacific Ocean October 15, 2013 A thousand mile journey begins with a single step, or in this case, with one revolution of the bike’s wheels. A completed journey ties the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.  After taking a tour of Victoria by bus, it was around 2:30 and time to actually start the bike journey, if indeed I was going to do this. Actually it was a pain to roll/carry the bike down to the water. There was a steep embankment, and this was just a symbolic tradition, and pointless unless the ride spans the entire nation. That would be a far more ambitious goal, possibly in the future. The current goal was more Forrest Gumpian: I would ride until I got tired of riding. Then I would stop. Just a tiny start would be all that could be accomplished in 2013.  6 days later I would be attending an actuarial conference in San Diego. For now this was a one year commitment.  If I enjoye...
Read more

2025: Return to the TransCanada Trail

Image
  Awesome Lake Kootenay Oliver Rd - ending point 3 years ago Thursday:  June 26, 2025 - Gray Creek, BC Three years ago Audrey and I finished our travel for 2022 on the TransCanada Trail at Gray Creek, BC. For the past couple years, it just wasn't in the cards for me to get back to my trek through beautiful British Columbia.  We stopped in Gray Creek on the shore of Kootenay Lake faced with an important decision.  At Gray Creek, the TCT continues by climbing the very steep backroad up to Gray Creek Pass.  The road is a wash-boarded  4 by 4 road which climbs 4500 feet in 10 miles.   Then  the road descends steeply and arrives at Kimberley, BC 40 miles further.  Since this is a very difficult section of the TCT, there is a detour route using regular BC highways to also arrive at Kimberley, but the detour is 120 miles longer. I took my F150 out to the back road, to check how steep and rough the road was.  Would it be possible for me to ...
Read more

Wed/Thur 9/22-23: Castlegar to Gray Creek

Image
  Kootenay Lake 9/22   The Castlegar area posed a quandary.  How do we go to get to Nelson?  Audrey had spent some time looking at our maps of the area, and was concerned because the route adopted by the trail, did not seem to go through but just ended in a dead end.  At the same time I took a bike ride, just to try to find the  Trail.  I found a trail, and followed it for quite awhile.  But it was very rough and I found myself walking the bike much of the way.  I continued, expecting that eventually I would get to a well-defined path, with a good surface.  When the trail deteriorated to not even being a good hiking trail, I knew I had to turn back.   Our guidebook was not helpful, as the original trail in this area went to the south,  but according to the website, there was a connection to Nelson which lies to the northeast. Finally the decision was made that I would travel along the main  highway toward Nelson,...
Read more