Tulameen to Merritt

Day 3 - June 19, 2012

Weather: Clear and sunny but cold at the start. Light winds.

Trail description: The trail along the east side of Otter Lake looks delightful but we chose to improve our average speed by cycling the paved road along the west side of the lake for 9 km's, before re-joining the trail. The road itself has a few hills but is still faster. The gravel grading that dogged us for much of the trip stops north of Otter Lake and the KVR trail surface for the rest of the Otter Creek valley is more natural and earthy with lots of loose rocks. It's all valley-bottom farmland so in some areas sprinklers were wetting the trail and near Thynne Lake a small creek overflowed its banks and created a few large puddles. There are gates to open and close, some made of several strands of barbed wire stretched across wooden poles that require care unlatching and latching as the barbed wire is under tension and recoils like a spring. At about 27 km's the Otter Creek valley makes a sharp turn to the east taking the nearby Aspen Grove Stage Road with it. The trestle that formerly crossed the road is missing so there is a walkable detour down to the road and back up to the trail on the far side. At this point the KVR heads off to the northwest up the Spearing Creek drainage leaving the farms and roads behind. The grade is steeper and the trail surface is rockier. There are several washouts but all have easy walkable detours. At 35.5 km's from Tulameen the KVR crosses the height-of-land into the Brook Creek drainage and meets up with the paved Coldwater Road. The general grade is now downhill to the west. We chose to improve our average speed by cycling the road which emerges into the Coldwater River valley and turns north towards Merritt plunging down some steep hills in the process. The KVR with its maximum grade requirement of 2.2% turns south towards Hope for several kilometers before looping back (called the Brodie Loop), dropping the same elevation in 12 km's that the road does in 7 km's. A couple of kilometers past Brookmere (which has more houses than we expected) we could see the Coquihalla Highway across the valley. At the bottom of some steep, twisty downhills we crossed the branchline to Merritt (no longer the main KVR which continues southwest from the Brodie Loop towards Hope). The branchline trail is narrower and lacks the grooming of the TransCanada Trail but we liked it. It has twin wheel-ruts with a grassy central strip so you have a choice of riding in the left or right rut. At 47.3 km's from Tulameen we rode under the Coquihalla Highway. 3 km's later on the outskirts of Kingsvale the trail was blocked by a gate with a Private Land sign. Not far back along the trail a handy path leads down to the Coldwater Road. As we cycled the road through Kingsvale we could see that the railway once crossed the road but whatever bridge was there is long gone. The road crosses Voght Creek and on the far side we found another path that took us back up to the railbed, now on the west side of Coldwater Road. About 22 km's south of Merritt the trail comes to an abrupt end at a major landslide that has dumped a couple of hundred meters of the trail into the Coldwater River. Picking our way across the steep sandy remains of the slope did not appeal to us, so we backtracked on the trail for 1.25 km's to Peterson Road, a paved but stiff climb up to the Coldwater Road. If the trail hadn't been cut off by the landslide we would only have been able to ride another 5.5 km before being stopped at the Coldwater Indian Reserve, so we chose to finish out our ride on the Coldwater Road. From Peterson Road it starts with a massive downhill then rolls through beautiful, semi-arid ranch land. A final big downhill brings us to Highway 5A, the access road from the Coquihalla into Merritt.

Special concerns: The distance on the KVR and branchline to Merritt is 85 km's, a long day at our usual 8 k.p.h. Our solution was to cycle 39 of those kilometers on paved roads to increase our average speed.

Wildlife: Several deer, more cows and three Great Pyrenees.

Distance and elevation: Distance travelled was 83 km's from Tulameen to the Merritt Desert Inn, including all our detours on paved roads and riding back to Peterson Road from the landslide that cut the trail. Excluding a few hills on the Aspen Grove Stage Road detour around Otter Lake, the elevation gain for the first 22 km's is an un-noticeable 27 meters. After that, the grade for the next 15 km's to Brookmere is a steeper, noticeable gain of 160 meters. When the KVR reached the paved Brookmere Road we veered onto it to cut off the Brodie Loop and save time: a few rolling hills then a couple of steep, steep downhills dropping 110 meters to the point where we re-joined the trail. Over the next 14 km's we dropped another 130 meters until stymied by an impasseable landslide on the Coldwater River. The detour up Peterson Road at a very non-railway grade of 6% in 1.5 km's with a gain of 63 meters by the time you reach the top at Coldwater Road. Most of that elevation is lost in the next 3 km's, followed by twenty rolling kilometers on the scenic Coldwater Road into Merritt, capped off by a last big downhill into town.

Average speed and time on the trail: We left the KVR Trail Edge B&B at a chilly 7:00 AM and reached Merritt at about 4:30 PM. Our average speed was 8.8 k.p.h..

GPS tracking: We used a Garmin 910XT to record our distance and elevation changes and used the information to produce the elevation profile below.

It's a chilly morning as we prepare to set out at 7:00 AM

Otter Lake is like glass

The KVR north of Otter Lake

Otter Creek runs back and forth across the valley bottom requiring many small bridges

Thynne Lake

High water in Otter Creek or a tributary is flooding the trail

These barbed wire gates are flimsy but unwieldy and tricky to unlatch and re-latch

The trestle over the Aspen Grove Stage Road is missing so we walk the detour

The Aspen Grove Stage Road. Notice the charred timbers of the former trestle

It's a tough push on the other side of the detour to get back up to the KVR

As we leave the Otter Valley farmland behind the grade gets steeper and the landscape more rugged

Another washout to walk around

Scars left by a former beaver dam

We reach the Coldwater Road and stop by this snowplow for lunch

Jim generously shares his Pringles

The watertower at Brookmere was moved off of its original concrete base as part of its preservation

One of Brookmere's more Daliesque and photogenic houses

We take the Coldwater Road to save some time and the Coquihalla Highway comes into view across the valley

We hesitate at the top of a particularily steep downhill. I think we've gotten too used to easy railway grades

After eight kilometers on the paved road we get back on the rail trail, now a branchline following the Coldwater River to Merritt

We pass under the Coquihalla Highway with Coldwater Road on our left

Walking around another washout

The Merritt branchline is blocked by a farm gate at Kingsvale. Not far back back a short path leads down to Coldwater Road

Riding on Coldwater Road through the quaint village of Kingsvale

After crossing Voght Creek in Kingsvale the trail starts again on the west side of the road

A small brook cuts across the trail

This major landslide has dropped a large piece of the trail into the Coldwater River

While we decide what to do, some curious cows gather to watch us

We backtrack to Peterson Road and it's a steep climb up to Coldwater Road

Coldwater Road makes our last 23 km's smooth and fast

How do bears know that they're supposed to cross here?

A view down at the Merritt branchline. A change in the river's course has left this old trestle high and dry

Merritt is in sight! One final big downhill takes us to the edge of town

We turn off of Coldwater Road onto Highway 5A

We are done, but it looks like we missed the Swollen Members. We'll have to make do with swollen butts

A bunch of young-at-heart people proud of their accomplishment

Packing up for the trip home

On our way home we stop at the Othello Tunnels in Hope and spotted this map showing our ride

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