Great Trail wk2 d5

Castlegar to Christina Lake was probably our second hardest day so far but wonderful. We discovered one of British Columbia’s treasurer’s other than its beauty: a rail trail.

This rail trail, the Columbia and Western travels for about a hundred miles. We did about 70 of them today over a mountain pass. The wonderful part was the 4% grade. Uphill for 30 miles is a bit much but at 4% you can do it for a long time. Coming down is almost perfect for easy riding with not too much speed. The other day coming off of Gray’s Creek Pass we were on a 14% grade and about melted are brake rotors. Additionally, it’s quite amazing to see the work that was done in the late eighteen hundreds from a civil engineering standpoint. Tunnels and trestles were the order of the day. One of the tunnels was so long we got nervous passing through it and we’re glad we had our headlights.

Of course the scenery was amazing as we followed Arrow Lake out of Castlegar for about 20 miles. Then nearing our destination of Christina Lake we could look down on it for several miles. It continues to amaze me the amount of water and the unused lake surface. We’ll look out over hundreds of square miles of lake and see maybe two boats.

The only slight downside to these beautiful rail-trails is that they were of course used by coal-burning locomotives for years. Burning that coal left a lot of soot on the trails . Some of which is no longer on the trail .

Gloria doesn’t realize that I don’t carefully pick the places we stay. She thinks I keep choosing amazing locations to stay. Tonight it’s a bed and breakfast on the shore of Christina lake with our own dock. Unbelievable. This particular picture is looking South and the haziness is from fires in Washington. In fact, we can see Washington from here as Christina Lake almost touches the Border.

For those of you that are confused about where we are or may have trouble finding Canada on a map (my District 60 friends from Pueblo:) here’s a map with our location.

Photos