August 2nd, 2007
This past weekend we had the opportunity for a little side journey into our new “neck of the woods”. Approximately an hour and a half north of Trail up a narrow passage called the Slocan Valley (A drive I highly recommend for motor cyclists) is the town of New Denver, and a few short kilometers away is the ghost mining town of Sandon. And it is at Sandon that our adventure began. Just through Sandon is a rough 12 km road (4×4 trail/logging/fire road) that leads to a dead end, but oh what a dead end. The road starts at the bottom of a mountain, and ends (almost) at the top. And at the end of the road is a 2 km hiking trail to the (very) top of the mountain. What a fabulous time. The 12 km road takes about 30 minutes to drive; it’s narrow with mountain on one side and nothing but air and a long fall on the other side. And the rule is that the guy going down the hill has the right-of-way, so if you happen to come across someone coming down, you get to backup down the skinny road until you get to a place wide enough for them to pass. Yahoo, what fun!
Once you’ve driven up the road the real fun begins… hiking up a 1.4km, 500 vertical foot, narrow path to a fire tower at the top of the hill. It is an amazing hike filled with wildflowers, ridge lines and beautiful scenery everywhere. It’s hard to describe so I’ve included a few photos to help out. Click here to see more photos or click on the pictures on the right and select the hiking set on the right side of the screen and click slideshow…but let’s be serious, it’s way easier to just click here.
Oh, and here’s a short video too…
