Peter Freeman: Tandoming the Twin Tracks

Links

I awoke before Mary to a sunny blue sky day. I felt refreshed after sleeping nearly twelve hours and I wanted to get up and get moving but because we had to wait until one o'clock to get the new tires, I would have to find something to do with my time. I quietly dressed, grabbed my camera and left Mary still sleeping to head outside where I wandered over to a shed that was filled with all sorts of old machinery and antique junk. On an exterior wall, hung an extensive collection of rusty saws from the logging days, another shed displayed an old car and gas station signs from the past and a piece away, sat an old tractor attached to a threshing machine. I noticed Mary had awoken and had come onto the balcony to look for me, so I rejoined her and we went down to the lodge for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked out onto one of the docks to watch a fly fisherman whip his line far out onto the lake. We were impressed with the ease at which he whipped the line out into the air, further and further with every flick of his wrist until he finally let it go to land way out onto the placid water. Mary was fascinated by the way he controlled his line.

"No, you hold it at a forty-five degree angle like this and it goes back along side of you."

"I just pinch the line like this and let it go a bit more when I flick it out. Would you like to try?"

Mary was standing in front of me so I gave her a gentle push. He took this to mean yes and held out the rod to her.

"Just bring it in until the leader, that's that green coloured line, is about there, hold it like this and now bring it back here...and now forward and...no, you have to let the line go just as the rod goes out. Try it again."

He watched as Mary's tentative tries first had the line whipping into the water at her feet but later getting further and further out. Just for safety, he moved back to avoid getting accidentally hooked as the line whistled through the air but after a while she was becoming quite adept although the fish didn't notice and weren't enticed by the fly. He gave me a try but neither could I provide us with a tasty meal.

We walked back to the lodge and moved the tandem over to a water faucet to clean off the last four days of dust. Mary washed the bike while a woodpecker started hammering away at a power pole beside her and I snapped it with my camera. I wandered off to see what else I could photograph leaving Mary with the pleasure of turning our bike into a shiny new machine. On the side of the lodge was a playground area for children which was populated with a field full of beautiful orange flowers and down at the shore of the lake, I spotted a furry bundle squatting on the boards of the dock. Moving closer and closer until I was only a few feet away, I came eyeball to eyeball with a duck too comfortable to move from its resting spot. I withdrew quietly leaving it undisturbed and walked back to see how Mary was doing. The bike looked fresh and eager to go but without its wheels it was going nowhere so to kill time, we went into the lodge to have lunch and play eight ball. Both of us could count on the fingers of our hands the times we have played pool so the game lasted a long time. Finally it was almost one o'clock and a car rolled up in the driveway outside.

"I got your tires. It took a while as I had to go to two bike shops to get them. People don't use twenty-eight inch wheels much today."

I spun the tires around in my hand. They looked strong enough, though I was worried that the bead would not be tough enough to take the pressure, however it had a steel wire embedded in it. I took them to the bike, assembled them onto the rims and then relaxed knowing that we could get going soon and not have to worry about our wheels any more. As soon as the tandem was complete again, I adjusted the brake pads to make sure that they could not touch the tire even when it compressed after going over rough ground. I was satisfied. Mary climbed on and with a quick tap on the horn, we pedaled off leaving behind a group of curious onlookers.

At the far end of the Chute Lake, we crossed a creek that drained the lake and then rode into the forest and away from the signs of habitation. The trail here was good as it was made up of firm moist soil and we traveled fast. After a while it became drier and we were once again skittering from side to side in loose sandy soil. Our guide book gave this tip:

Deflating tires to around fifteen psi gives you a better ride and more control as you cruise over the rough Texas pea gravel and loose sand that is encountered on this downhill stretch.

I stopped the bike and let some air out. I could not leave only fifteen pounds per square inch of pressure as this bike had to carry two people on tires that were only an inch and three eight's wide, much narrower than mountain bike tires but I was curious to see if it improved handling. It did not. Now we swayed drunkenly from side to side as I wrestled with the heavy feel of the handle bars. The other risk was that sharp rocks hidden in the sand would puncture the softer tires so I stopped and pumped them back up again. It was going to be an interesting ride, at least it was downhill.

Eleven kilometres after leaving Chute Lake, we reached the Adra tunnel. This four hundred and eighty-nine metre long spiral tunnel had been built to allow the railway to switch back from traveling southward down the mountain to turn and head northward. It was blocked off and a sign warned of the danger of entering it, but my curiosity was piqued so I climbed over the barricade and walked into the gloom. About a hundred metres in, I could see light entering the tunnel from the roof and a stream of water running into it. The guide book summed the situation up aptly:

Safe travel through the tunnel can not be guaranteed as the ceiling and walls have given way on the outside of the walls near the lower entrance and there can be a foot of water at the lower end.

I returned and we walked the bike down a track to bypass the tunnel. When we regained the track below the tunnel, we rode back up to see the lower entrance, which showed much disuse over the years. At the tunnel entrance we checked our odometers to measure off the distance to a pair of rock ovens, a bit over three kilometres down the track which were build by Scandinavian workers to bake bread for the men working on the railway. We measured off the correct distance and after hunting around a bit, found a trail leading up through some beautiful pine trees where we found the first oven still in excellent shape, slightly disguised by its covering of grass and moss. The other one had not fared so well as a large tree had fallen right on top of it.

While we looked around in the forest, a jeep pulling a trailer filled with a camouflage net pulled up on the rail bed below us. Two men got out, one dressed in a railway engineer's uniform from the days of steam, and walked up the trail to where we were, their conversation floating over to us.

We walked down to where they were intently examining the grass on a level spot under some trees.

"We're looking for traces of the Kettle Valley railway workers camp. We came through here a few years back but missed seeing a few places."

They were looking closely at an old drum, half buried in the grass which had originally contained black blasting powder, used before dynamite was available. We left them fishing around the site and walked back down to the railway and our bike.

We continued following the rail bed northward down the mountain side, slewing from side to side and attempting to find the best path through the loose sandy gravel. Dust kicked up from the front wheel, mixed with sweat on my legs and left me filthy. There were numerous hoof prints along the trail and I noticed fresh cattle dung. Just as we approached an access road that intersected the railway, a dozen or so fully grown beasts heard us coming and surged down the access road, bellowing as they ran. Further down the track, an opening in the trees gave us a good view of Lake Okanagan and from this spot we thought we could see Summerland on the other side of the lake. We met a cyclist coming up from Penticton on a un-ladened mountain bike and he spoke to us briefly in what I thought was a Swiss accent before continuing on his way. A bit further on, the railway looped back in a tight hairpin curve and now we headed south again towards Penticton where lower down the mountain side we could see cultivated land below us. There were less trees now and the heat was becoming oppressive so when the Little Tunnel hove into view, we knew we could stop a while in the cooler air inside. The view here was clear and unhindered to the south where we could see Penticton and Lake Skaha. On Lake Okanagan, power boats surged past, a white trail dissolving behind them and as we watched, another cyclist came through the tunnel.

"There is a trestle out near Faulder, you have to take the road all the way until it crosses the river. I managed to get down the creek and up the other side but you guys would need a rope to get your bike up the hill."

I left Mary chatting with him, while I ranged around looking for photographic opportunities just as a group of motor cyclists roared through the tunnel going uphill. I wandered back to the bike as the cyclist was leaving and we rode through the tunnel and out the other side. We had just gotten going again when I felt the back tire go flat, this time the puncture caused by a half inch slice in the wall, probably from sliding past a razor sharp rock. Rather than spend time fixing it, I took off the tire and swapped it for the old front wheel tire that I had been carrying as a spare however I didn't know how far I would get with it, but I hoped that it would last until we reached Summerland. After I had changed the tire, I coiled the damaged tire up into a folded figure of eight and strapped it on to the saddlebag rack. It was hard to avoid getting dust on my clothes and when I looked at myself, I was covered in brown stains and my face soiled from using my dirty forearms to wipe my sweaty brow. I was a mess!

As we slowly descended, the track became worse. In places we had to pedal hard in low gears to get through deep patches of loose sand and I looked with longing at the fertile fields ahead of us, hoping the trail would improve. It was in one deep patch of sand, littered with small rocks that I felt the front wheel slide out of control while I struggled with the handlebars, trying to keep the bike upright. In an instant the bike went down, throwing Mary and me into the dust. We picked ourselves up and I looked at Mary's dirty clothes.

"I think I strained my foot again, the same one I hurt last month on the Galloping Goose."

I stood up carefully, picked up the bike and wheeled it out of the sand patch until we were on firmer ground. I limped as I walked but the pain was subsiding, so we mounted up and got moving again. I was feeling frustrated by the difficult conditions of heat, dust, my sore hands, foot and the slow progress that was causing me to grow impatient. The rail bed was moving into the outskirts of Penticton and I was sorely tempted to take one of the asphalt roads that crossed over it. We passed by a little creek that flowed from a dam before curving around and heading towards fields of fruit trees and then passed between two orchards where we were stopped in a cutting by a stack of wooden crates that formed a barrier right across the rail bed. A rough sign proclaimed this to be private property and trespassers would be prosecuted. We had heard that land in this area was being contested, but the latest news was it still belonged to the Canadian Pacific Railway which had taken over the Kettle Valley Railway. It was frustrating to be stopped this way, particularly since the trail surface was improving and although our guide book had mentioned a detour off the rail bed and onto roads to avoid an area of unstable land, but we had not yet reached that spot.

We wheeled the bike around and headed back to the last spot where a road had crossed the railway. What a contrast to be riding on smooth asphalt where we zoomed down a hill, around a corner and moved quickly along a straight until I heard a sharp crack coming from the front wheel. A spoke had broken and it was the second one, the first happened a few weeks before leaving for our trip. I had brought a half dozen replacement spokes for each of the wheels and had taped them to the frame so it took only a few minutes to unscrew the broken spoke, thread the new one through the eye in the hub and lace it around the adjacent spoke. I smeared grease on the thread and using a spoke wrench, tightened it up while Mary held the front wheel up for me to spin the wheel and adjusted the rim until it was running true. When I had purchased the spare spokes, I was surprised to find that the spokes were fifteen gauge, the thinnest bicycle spokes I have seen since most bikes use heavier fourteen gauge spokes. The rear wheel had forty spokes, but as the front wheel had thirty-six spokes, I thought that stronger spokes would be necessary to carry the weight of two persons. I made a mental note to replace the spokes with thicker ones when the trip was over.

As we traveled along different roads, I read off the names on the sign post while Mary tried to find the correct road on the map but it became a little confusing as the map did not seem to match the roads. We ended up heading back to the east and getting on a major road that lead towards Penticton where we rounded a corner and stopped to read the sign above the entrance to a ranch.

The yellow hazard traffic signs and the name of this ranch bore testimony to the skill of the drivers that passed this way. The road headed downhill and abruptly the fruit orchards gave way to suburban houses and neat lawns and gardens. We kept a lookout for the Kettle Valley Railway finally finding it again in a very different form as it had been paved and had a white centerline painted along its length showing that we had reached civilization and had a sign to prove it. This smooth trail did not exactly follow the rail bed for at times it ran parallel to and in some spots was moved away as much as a hundred feet to pass over roads at lights or pedestrian crossings. Sometimes it was not easy to find it again as it meandered towards the centre of Penticton.

We crossed over a creek and soon after the paved trail ended. Ahead of us was two empty lots and the back of a warehouse where there was no sign of the railway. We rode into the warehouse yard and went up and down looking for clues as to where the trail went but all indications of the original track were either built over or leveled. We came out of the yard, onto a road and tried picking up the trail by riding ahead a few hundred metres and intersecting it but there was still no sign of it. A lady watering her lawn became our tour guide as she directed us to a different part of town where we arrived at a gas station more by chance than by design. I went inside and spoke with the attendant. He looked up and down at my filthy clothes and face before he spoke.

We're looking for the old Kettle Valley Railway where it goes to Summerland. We were following the paved trail for a while but it stopped and we can't find the rail bed again."

I moved aside as a customer came in to pay for gas they had pumped into their car. On a shelf, I spotted boxes of Power Bars and took the opportunity to replenish our supplies. I waited until we were alone again.

"See this road out front here? Well, go down there until you hit the lights. Go straight through the lights, over the canal and as soon as you are on the other side, turn right onto a path and follow it for a couple a hundred yards. You can see where the railway used to cross the canal."

"I bought some more Power Bars, some are banana, but I got you some chocolate ones."

Mary put the Power Bars in the saddle bags and we headed down to the lights. We crossed over the Okanagan River Channel and as I had been directed, turned to the right onto a path that took us along the side of the canal for a kilometre where we arrived at the remains of the railway bridge and were able to rejoin the track. A hundred metres later the track forked with one line heading down to Osoyoos and the other, which we took, headed up through the coulees on its way to Summerland. It was getting late, after seven o'clock, and the hills to the west of us were hiding the sun.

As we climbed, the rail grade grew steeper until it was over two percent where we passed under three road bridges. The soil here was different and a lot firmer than we had encountered on the other side of Okanagan Lake so we were able to move at a steady fifteen kilometres an hour up through the deep chasms cut into benches left from a time when the lake was much higher. The climb eased off but the surface grew rocky and as I became concerned that we would get a puncture, I stopped the bike.

"Don't do that, you have the old one on the back and I want to get to our motel before dark!"

"I have to put some air in the tire otherwise we might get a snakebite puncture from the rocks."

"That's what you always say. I don't like it, you'll put too much air in the tire."

I forced in the last few pounds of air and put away the pump but just as I threw my leg over the top tube and readied the bike, a sharp explosion deafened me and reverberated around the hills as the back wheel slumped to the ground, flat.

I remained silent as I removed the rear wheel and the tire. The journey weakened tire had split over an inch an a half and the tube had a half inch raged hole blown out of it and I would have to repair the new tire with the rock slice first before we could get going again. A half hour later I had patched the tire, put in a new tube and pumped it up hard. The tire was new so it could take the pressure and there remained only a few kilometres to go before we reached our motel in Summerland. The view from our position against the cliffs was spectacular for we could see right across the lake and spot the railway as it cut its way slowly down the mountain side from Chute Lake. Below us nestled Sun-Oka beach, partially illuminated by the low sun and from this point onward, we looked for the spot where we would leave the track and head into the township of Summerland for the night.

The motel owner had told us to get off the railway before Trout Creek, however high fences around the Research Centre prevented us from finding a way out so we continued riding until we reached the bridge over Trout Creek. The bridge spanned a deep gorge, now dark and forbidding in the last light from the sun and still contained the iron rails, left in place for the Kettle Valley Railway Heritage Society to run a steam excursion train to the station at Faulder, twelve kilometres westward.

We crossed the bridge to the other side where a sturdy barrier of steel rails and railway ties blocked our passage. It took a bit of effort and manipulation to work the tandem around this obstacle but eventually we made it through and continued pushing our bike over the ties to reach an access road that lead off to the right. In unfamiliar surroundings, we traveled along the road, level at first, until it started to plunge down a hill making me apprehensive about continuing without knowing where we were going, particularly since the road looked as though it was heading back down to the lake. I didn't want to have to climb all the way back from the lake again so at an intersection, I asked for directions and was rewarded with clear instructions that took us into the town of Summerland. With more guidance from a passerby, we headed past a couple of funeral homes and spotted the Rosedale Motel. At the end of the driveway through the units, sat a group of people in the cool evening shade outside the motel office on of them, the female proprietor who recognized us from Mary's description when she booked the motel ten days before.

"Yes, we didn't leave Chute Lake until one-thirty and it was hard going. By the way, I'm Mary and this is Peter."

"We'll need some time to shower and change, it's a bit after nine...we'll be ready at nine-thirty."

"Hello? This is the Rosedale motel, we have a couple of folk here who would like to eat at the restaurant, can you pick them up at nine-thirty?...uh huh...okay, thank you...bye."

"Well, you can park it in the shed beside the office, my husband's bike is there too, it'll be safe. Show these folk where they can put their bike, dear."

I accompanied her husband over to the shed and leaned it against a refrigerator as I was directed.

I met Mary outside the motel as she put the key in the lock and opened the door. Inside, the motel was modern and very clean so we took off our dirty shoes and socks outside and left them on the mat before going in where we stripped and dumped out cloths in the shower stall. Mary showered first, stomping the soapy water into the soiled clothes under her feet and when she emerged, she looked fresh and clean. I took over the primitive laundering, washing myself clean at the same time so by nine-thirty, we were dressed in our long tights and fleece jackets, a little hot inside the motel, but okay in the cool evening air.

We stepped outside just as the shuttle bus arrived. The suntanned driver, dressed in an Hawaiian shirt and shorts greeted us and slid open the side door and when we were seated inside, he steered the bus onto the street and down a steep hill to the water. Five minutes later, we reached the restaurant, were ushered us inside and a waitress found us a table in the corner of a large deck hung out over the edge of the lake. Below us was a dock, lit by yellow lights and securing a number of sail and power boats, some quite large and expensive. A little colour remained in the sky, faintly illuminating the far shore and the brighter stars that had appeared while off the lake, a cool breeze wafted over us in gentle waves, alternating with the radiant warmth from a gas heater on a pole above us. Flames from a number of burning torches placed strategically amongst the tables lit our faces with a cheery glow and at the other end of the deck, a solo guitarist played a medley of popular tunes from the past, easing comfortably from one tune into the other without pause. In this atmosphere I felt calm and relaxed, but very hungry.

We ordered our meals, a spicy chicken dish for me and an Alfredo for Mary. Buns and water helped keep our appetite sharp as we waited for the food to arrive while we sat in our quiet corner overlooking the lake and talked about our day and what we could expect tomorrow. With five days successfully completed and only two to go, the trip was working out well although it had proved to be more difficult than we had thought as we spent more time on the trail than planned. Early starts were important to cope with the unexpected, tomorrow we would need to travel almost one hundred and twenty kilometres and the next day about one hundred and thirty, longer than we had done so far. Our legs were coping well with the daily distance and although I had not noticed any drop off in our performance, we felt a little stiff in the morning before warming up and began to feel fresh and strong.

Our waitress brought our food and we started, swapping plates after a while so we could enjoy each other's meal. With my belly full of warm food and a jug of water, I was beginning to feel sleepy particularly since it was well after ten-thirty and we needed rest for another early start. Mary called for the check and I looked for the bus driver to take us back to our motel who I found sitting inside eating his dinner.

"That's okay, my wife is still over there paying for the meal, she'll be a while yet."

He forked the last few pieces off his plate, dabbed his mouth with the napkin and stood up.

Mary joined me and the three of us went outside to the bus. Inside the bus, I dozed as Mary leaned forward and spoke to the driver.

"I though so. You know, it was very nice of you to pick us up and take us back home again. Not too many places would have done that."

"Well, I've always felt that the best advertising is word of mouth, and satisfied customers are the best customers. Did you enjoy your meal?"

"It was lovely, the service was good and so was the entertainment. It was very nice."

"That was one of our locals playing the guitar. Next week we'll have a local band, the female singer is also a local and has a beautiful voice. We like to vary the entertainment as much as possible so people keep coming back."

"I notice that some come across the lake by boat. There was a large powerboat that left while we were having our meal."

"For some people who live opposite us here on the other side of the lake, it's faster to just go across the lake than to drive down to Penticton then up the lake to here. The road is here is winding."

We reached the motel and waved goodbye as he turned out of the driveway and left us. In a few minutes we had cleaned our teeth and as Mary prepared the maps for our next day's journey, I repaired the two tubes that had been punctured but it was still close to midnight before our heads rested on the pillows and seconds later I fell deeply asleep.