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!

ECT Series: Cape Spear Path

March 5, 2025February 27, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

Cape Spear Path is such a classic on the East Coast Trail that I’m surprised I haven’t already written about it. The trail runs from Cape Spear to Maddox Cove and is approximately 11.5km long. I first hiked the trail in full in 2013, but doing an out-and-back trip from Cape Spear to North Head is one of my favourite day trips when I’m home for a visit. It’s ~9km to North Head and back, but it’s really easy and flat hiking, so I recommend it to visitors a lot.

When I was home in Summer of 2024, I decided to do a re-do of the thru hike with my parents and Brandon. The first time I did it, I hiked from Maddox Cove to Cape Spear, but this time we did it in reverse. I don’t think you can really go wrong, but the Cape Spear side of the trail is definitely easier, so knocking out the Maddox Cove section first has its benefits. The trail from Maddox Cove is mostly in the trees and winds up and down the coast, so it’s a little more tiring. Eventually you pop out of the woods and the rest of the trail is exposed along the coast and incredibly scenic.

Overall, there’s barely any elevation gain in either direction, just a small climb up over the bluff at Herring Cove as the trail continues to North Head. North Head is pretty much the halfway point (distance wise, but maybe not time-wise), so it’s a great place to stop for lunch. My favourite thing is to walk out to the viewpoint and watch for whales. You don’t need to be constrained for whale watching though, it’s rare that I hike this trail and don’t see whales in the summer! On this occasion, we were shocked to see flying tuna jumping out of the water! I’ve never seen tuna in Newfoundland, but on this trip (in early September), I saw tuna jumping on two different occasions (and received a report from my uncle in Twillingate that he saw one too), so it was a very eventful trip!

My other favourite part of Cape Spear Path is the blueberries. Like I said, the trail is completely exposed from North Head to Cape Spear. There’s only low shrubs along the trail, most of which are blueberries! They get a bit picked over close to the lighthouse, but there’s lots of good berry picking close to North Head, so we stopped a few times for snacks along the way. The only downside is that it can get pretty windy along the cliffside.

So I definitely recommend this trail to locals and tourists alike. It’s a pretty good trail for beginners and if you just hike to North Head and back, it’s a really easy and scenic day. Plus, most tourists plan to visit Cape Spear (the most easterly point in North America) at some point during their visit, so it’s a fun way to tie in some hiking and make a day of it.

While I do think hiking from Maddox Cove to Cape Spear is a bit easier, the benefit of hiking the other direction is that you can finish your hike with a stop into Petty Harbour to get ice cream at Tinkers! Petty Harbour is a cute little outport community and is home to the most outrageously large ice cream concoctions. You can easily drop a bit of cash here, but it’s worth it for the photo op and the delicious snack! Enjoy your ice cream on the patio after a rewarding hike!