Day 392
KVR
So, with a final wave we said goodbye to Kate and headed off uphill. I was feeling strong, the rest had clearly done me good. We had two route options to reach the top, a shorter but steeper route or an extra 15 miles with a kinder gradient. My Garmin was set for the shorter route so off I went. Tom saw how steep it was and questioned if we had made the correct decision. We had a chat and decided a short push would be better than an extra 15 miles, especially in the heat, 35 degrees and rising! Pretty much straight away Carla and I were pushing. Neither of us felt we had much energy, the heat was sapping our strength. Carla set a steady pace and off she went. I was struggling from the get go. Tom, the trooper that he is rode ahead, dumped his bike, ran back down the hill and pushed my bike up, sometimes whilst I peddled sometimes whilst I walked. This worked OK for a while but I realised something wasn’t right with me. Normally I relish a hill. I know myself pretty well and knew I should be up to riding this. The heat was really having an impact on my body. I started to experience all the early warning signs of heatstroke and knew I couldn’t simply ignore my symptoms and push through it.
Tom made me eat some food, and sit in the shade which helped but as soon as I stood up, I knew I couldn’t go on. Nothing for it but we had to call Kate. She immediately agreed to pick me up and drive me to the top. Tom went ahead, and I settled down to wait. A few minutes later a white pick-up stopped. Liam, the young driver wanted to check I was OK and did I need a lift. It made sense to cancel Kate to save her the awful drive so I accepted with thanks. I pretty much just stood by and let Liam lift my bike and bags into the pick up, and settled back whilst we made small work of the climb. I waved as we passed Tom, and I arrived at the top about the same time as Carla. I managed to get extra water there and soon got myself rehydrated.
Now you’re probably thinking why didn’t I just go back to Kate’s and rest up. She would have been very happy to have me, it was clearly the sensible thing to do. Well, the reason we were putting ourselves through this awful climb was to reach Myra Canyon on the Kettle Valley Railway. This section of the line runs along a steep sided canyon. It was built by hand during the late 1800s. 18 trestles and 2 tunnels were needed, creating a stunning and exciting trail for us to ride on. Back in 2003 the trail was devastated by a wildfire, 12 of the trestles were destroyed. By 2008 they had all been rebuilt as close to the original as possible and the trail reopened. Well I’ll let Tom’s photos do the talking, but I’ll think you will agree it was worth the effort of getting there.
We spent a long time on the trail often riding over the trestles several times but all good things come to an end and we rode over the last trestle and left Myra Canyon behind. All were starting to feel tired by now, we had a vague plan to reach a campsite but Tom spotted a great place to camp overlooking the valley towards Kelowna and decided to stop for the night. We made sure we were bear-aware, especially as I had spotted one earlier! It was fantastic relaxing there watching the sun set. We all felt very blessed.
