Hiking Pincushion Trail

April 2, 2025March 13, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

You didn’t think I would go all the way to Kelowna for the Brier and not do any hiking did you? The whole trip was a small vacation for me and Seth. We had a really nice airbnb overlooking the lake in Peachland, with a hot tub to enjoy in the evenings. We decided to skip one of the playoff games to catch up with our friend Lien, who’s been living in Penticton for the last two years.

We deferred to Lien to pick a hike for us and he decided on the Pincushion Trail, which is located really close to where we were staying in Peachland. It’s a short trail, only 3.5km in length roundtrip, but it has about 250 metres of elevation gain, so it’s quite steep. The region is centered around Okanagan Lake, but it is hilly all around the lake and pretty arid, so there’s not many trees and it makes for great views. Some might call it mountainous, but it’s not like the coastal cascades or the rugged rockies, I would say the terrain is just smaller, more eroded mountains.

We visited in early March, so it was heating up a lot in Vancouver, but we forgot that because Kelowna isn’t coastal, it’s still pretty cold there in the winter. The mountains were still covered in snow, but the freeze line was pretty high, so we were able to hike all the way to the top without encountering much snow. We brought our microspikes just in case, but there were only a few small slushy areas.

The trail starts off the top of Ponderosa Drive and continues up over the hill to a small peak known as the Pincushion. The trail was a little more technical than I was expecting as there are a few short rocky scrambles, but overall, it’s a pretty simple trail, just steep. It took us an hour to hike to the top. There were a half dozen other cars in the lot and we did pass other hikers, but it wasn’t overly busy.

From the top you can see Okanagan Lake in both directions and across to the mountains on the other side. It’s a really lovely view. We stopped at the local Bliss Bakery before starting the hike to pick up some snacks and I enjoyed a delicious cinnamon roll at the top!

It’s a much quicker hike down than on the way up, but my legs did start to feel a little wobbly towards the end. We celebrated a successful hike by returning to the airbnb and enjoying the lake views from the hot tub! It’s a fun little hike if you’re in the area, it took us less than 2 hours, including the snack break. I’m not sure I’d want to do it in the summer when it’s really hot though, as there’s limited trees and shade along the steep trail.

A Weekend in Kelowna

March 26, 2025March 13, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

I’ve been in Vancouver more than 10 years and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve never been to Kelowna. I’ve driven through it and have made several trips to the Okanagan, but I’ve always stayed in Summerland or Penticton. Personally, I love camping right on the lake at Okanagan Lake Provincial Park, so Kelowna has never been a priority.

So why visit Kelowna in the middle of winter? A little known fact about me, if you only know me from the internet, is that I absolutely love curling! If you know me in real life, you’re probably well aware. The Brier, which is the National Men’s Curling competition, was held in Kelowna this year in early March. All provinces participate in the tournament and the champion gets to represent Canada the following year at international events.

I’ve been cheering for Brad Gushue since I was in high school. He’s represented Newfoundland at the Brier for many years, but for the better part of the last decade, he’s been representing Canada, having won 6 Brier titles in 8 years. Team Gushue was representing Team Canada at the Brier this year and I was thrilled to hear it was in Kelowna and bought a set of tickets for the playoffs. After following the round robin all week on TV, me and Seth drove out to Kelowna after work on a Thursday to stay for the weekend.

We ended up staying in Peachland because it was cheaper, but we got to spend a fair bit of time exploring downtown between games. Kelowna is one of the biggest cities in BC outside of the lower mainland, and it’s located in the middle of BC’s lake and wine country. From downtown, you can walk around the edge of the lake and there are tons of wineries within driving distance. We didn’t get a chance to sample the wineries, but we did get to enjoy lots of lake views.

Overall, downtown Kelowna felt pretty low key. It would not have been busy at all if not for all the curling fans, but I imagine it’s quite different in the summer. There are a few nice shops around downtown and lots of restaurants. The highlights for me were Gather Restaurant, which is a Korean fusion restaurant, and Mosaic Books, which had a great selection of local and bargain books. But overall there’s not really that much to do in Kelowna proper, so I stand by my decision to usually head straight for the lake in the summer.

We did have a great time at the tournament though! Gushue only lost one game in the round robin and made it through to the playoffs. We got to see them play 3 times in total and they won their first game of the playoffs and made it to the semi-final. Unfortunately, they lost the semi-final, but it was such a tight-game and it came down to the very last shot. We’re sad they won’t be representing Canada anymore, but they are already qualified for the Olympic trials, so fingers crossed!

Snowshoeing Black Mountain

March 19, 2025March 13, 2025 / Maria / 1 Comment

I was hoping to explore several new trails this winter, but life and avalanche conditions got in the way of most of my plans. In a last ditch effort to enjoy the snow before it disappeared completely, I decided to snowshoe up to Black Mountain on Cypress. For such an easily accessible trail, I’m surprised I haven’t ventured up there before!

Seymour and Hollyburn appear to be the most popular trails for snowshoeing near Vancouver, but there are a handful of trails near Cypress Resort that seem to get overlooked by the masses. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still busy, but the crowds seem tiny in comparison to the highway of hikers going to Dog Mountain on any given winter day.

When visiting Cypress, your first stop needs to be the Black Mountain Lodge. This is the lodge located towards the back of the main parking lot, not the ski lodge. This lodge serves a variety of functions, but one of them is a self-registration point for hikers. Whenever you’re going into the Cypress backcountry, you need to stop here and pick up a free hiking pass to attach to your bag. In addition, it’s a really nice facility, with a heated picnic room and flush toilets.

The two most popular trails from Cypress are Bowen Island Lookout, which is a great beginner trail, and Black Mountain, which is more advanced, mostly because it’s longer and steeper. If you’re really adventurous, I think some people continue past Bowen Island Lookout up to St. Mark’s, but I don’t recommend this without adequate experience and avalanche safety training because it is adjacent to challenging and complex avalanche terrain.

The Black Mountain trail follows the edge of the ski runs from Eagle Chair up to the top of the mountain. People do come up here on touring skis to ski down through the resort, but it’s fairly steep on the uphill, so be prepared for a slog. The snow was melting quite a lot when I snowshoed up there in early March, but it was a beautiful sunny day to be outside. It’s not an overly long trail – we tracked 6km round trip on my GPS, including a small loop at the top.

The trail is staked up to the top and it should be noted that the winter summit is different that the summer summit. If you continue around the loop at the top of the mountain, you’ll reach the winter summit. I was keen to also explore up to the summer summit, which branches off the main trail, but the snow was a bit slushy and we only had microspikes (not snowshoes). We started post-holing almost immediately and quickly abandoned the plan.

We stopped at the summit for a snack before finishing the loop. If you want to ski down, there is a side trail to the resort, but we didn’t check it out. You can also continue further to Eagle Bluffs, which is primarily in simple avalanche terrain, except for the summit. I haven’t done the Eagle Bluffs trail, so I’m not sure if that trail is also staked. We could see that it was not as frequently traveled as the Black Mountain trail and we would have been post-holing on that trail too without snowshoes.

Instead we just continued back downhill to the base after enjoying a nice day in the sun! It is a dog friendly trail, which was nice, so Sadie and Jasper joined us for the adventure. Overall, I don’t think I liked the trail as much as Bowen Island Lookout, Brockton Point, or Hollyburn, but it was definitely an easier trail than Hollyburn and comparable to Brockton Point in terms of difficulty. I would definitely pick Black Mountain over Dog Mountain though, as I find Dog Mountain too crowded.

In conclusion, it’s not as adventurous a trip as some of the plans I had to cancel, but it was really nice to get outside and hike somewhere new! We celebrated with a stop to The Shed on the way down the mountain to enjoy some delicious flatbread pizza and gorgeous views of the city!