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THE KETTLE VALLEY: HIGHWAY 33 TO ROCK CREEK

125 km, all paved

This quiet secondary highway offers a scenic day trip out of Kelowna or a quick route to the Kootenays.

START: The junction of Highways 33 and 97 in Kelowna.

HIGHWAY 33 FIRST travels through the urban and suburban landscapes of Rutland then winds through apple orchards as it climbs the southwest flank of Mine Hill. The deep valley to the south is the Mission Creek valley, the largest watershed in the Okanagan. The road climbs on to the grassy slopes of Black Knight Mountain— in the Kelowna area, native grasslands are confined largely to the south- and west-facing slopes that experience maximum heating during summer days. The grasslands of Black Knight Mountain have, unfortunately, been degraded by serious infestations of knapweed and other invasive plants.

Layer Cake Mountain, a striking rock bluff composed of about thirty distinct layers of even width, overlooks Mission Creek to the southwest. If you look more closely, you’ll see the rock’s columnar structure, which clearly identifies its volcanic origins. Layer Cake Mountain was formed about 50 million years ago, when the Okanagan Valley was still young and very active geologically. You might logically suppose that this mountain was built by a series of lava flows, but close examination of the structure reveals that it was all formed at the same time, and the layers must have been created by complex physical and chemical conditions during the cooling of the lava. Geologists are still debating this question.

Beyond Layer Cake Mountain is the broad ridge of Okanagan Mountain, its forests extensively burned in August and September 2003. Near the top of the ridge, due south, is Myra Canyon along KLO Creek; twelve of the spectacular railway trestles over this canyon were incinerated in the fire, as well, but have since been rebuilt to provide hikers and cyclists continued access along the historic Kettle Valley Rail Trail.

The road continues along the grassy sidehill of Black Knight Mountain, the slopes dotted with junipers and rabbitbrush. The low, grey rabbitbrush shrubs glow with bright yellow flowers in late summer. As you slowly descend towards Mission Creek, the grass gives way to forest, and by the time you cross Belgo Creek, it is quite moist forest, with western redcedars along the creek. Belgo Creek is locally famous as the site of one of the most destructive debris slides in the Okanagan. On June 12, 1990, after a period of heavy rain, runoff channelled by a logging road triggered a slide that brought 23,000 cubic metres (about 2,000 dump-truck loads) of mud, rock, and trees down a steep slope, obliterating a house and claiming one life. The slide site is about 4 kilometres up the valley from the highway.

After crossing Mission Creek itself, the road enters the Joe Rich Valley. Joe Rich Creek was presumably named after one of the earliest settlers in this area, but if so, the settler was likely a squatter who left nothing behind in the way of written history. Above the hay fields of Joe Rich, the highway climbs into forests of western redcedar, birch, and Engelmann spruce. These decidedly wet forests seem out of place in the Okanagan, a region characterized by arid grasslands and open pine woodlands. They occur here because the Pacific airflows moving west across the valley pick up moisture while descending into the valley, only to lose it again as rain and snow as they climb the eastern slopes and cool. Birds typical of coastal forests are common here, including chestnut-backed chickadees, varied thrushes, and winter wrens.

Near the headwaters of Joe Rich Creek, the highway passes the junction of the road to Big White, one of the three main ski areas in the Okanagan Valley. Shortly beyond, you go over the summit at 1,245 metres elevation and begin to follow Clark Creek, part of the Kettle River drainage. Just over the pass, a gravel road leads southwest off the highway, providing access to the McCulloch Reservoir and, if you don’t mind a long drive on a good gravel road, an alternate route back to Penticton or even to Okanagan Falls. The McCulloch Reservoir is named after Andrew McCulloch, the engineer who designed the Kettle Valley Railway. This track was built between 1910 and 1916, connecting the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks at Midway to the main line at Hope. Just past the junction, the highway comes close to the old Kettle Valley Railway grade for the first time as it crests the same pass and turns west and south to Penticton.

Here the highway cuts through basalt columns formed by thick lava flows cooling on the surface. These flows are related to the lava that covered the Cariboo and Chilcotin plateaus in relatively recent times, between 2 and 20 million years ago. The forests here are typical of the subalpine plateaus, dominated by the straight, thin trunks of lodgepole pine joined by Engelmann spruce and the soft, green needles of western larch. Over the next 20 kilometres, the highway descends fairly steadily to about 900 metres elevation. At these moderate elevations, summers are warm enough to support ponderosa pines, and the orange trunks and long needles of these pines can be seen among the Douglas-firs and other conifers from here to Rock Creek.

A short diversion to the northeast along the Trapping Creek Forest Service Road leads you to a series of three interpretive trails that showcase the stream restoration efforts begun here in 1997. The Trapping Creek valley was heavily logged in the 1970s, and in many cases trees were cut right to the water line and heavy machinery bulldozed the streambed in ways that are illegal today. The removal of riverside vegetation changed the flow of the creek and raised water temperatures so that it became unsuitable for fish and many other animals. A restoration project placed logs into the stream to recreate the pattern of pools and riffles that would provide cool retreats for fish during warm summer days and planted willows and other shrubs along the banks to provide shade.

The highway crosses Wilkinson Creek just past a rest area, then crosses the West Kettle River. This is the old townsite of Carmi, where gold was discovered in 1897, giving birth not only to this town but to Beaverdell farther down the road.

South of Carmi is a large burn—the Bea Fire burned 666 hectares of forest over a six-day period starting on July 31, 1989. The fire started in a sawmill log pile and quickly spread into the surrounding trees. An interpretive kiosk along the highway by the Beaverdell airstrip provides a fascinating description of the fire, its progress, and the battle to put it out.

The road continues south of Beaverdell through a mixed forest of ponderosa pine, western larch, and Douglas-fir. Dense stands of young lodgepole pine cloak flat gravel benches on the west. About 16 kilometres south of Beaverdell, you can see stream restoration work on the West Kettle River similar to that described above for Trapping Creek. Twenty-six log structures have been placed in the river to slow the flow and create deep pools for fish.

At Westbridge the West Kettle joins the Kettle River and continues flowing south to Rock Creek through a broad valley. Many of the wide river flats are planted in alfalfa, though some of them are weedy, unirrigated grasslands. Kettle River Provincial Park, about 6 kilometres south of Westbridge, provides a nice place to picnic or camp among ponderosa pines.

Large spruce and cottonwoods grow along the river, and campers here are often woken by the raucous hoots of barred owls, which love these big trees for nesting. Barred owls are one of the commonest and most widespread owls in British Columbia, but it wasn’t always so. They reached British Columbia in 1945, having spread across the forests of the northern prairie provinces rather rapidly in the early 1900s, perhaps because of a warming climate. They quickly moved through the British Columbia Interior, reaching the south coast in the late 1970s. There the barred owl encountered its close relative, the spotted owl, and its aggressive competition—and in some cases hybridization—with that endangered species has pushed the spotted owl even closer to extirpation in Canada.

Rock Creek was the site of a gold rush in 1859, when miners swarmed to stake placer claims along the creeks. The excitement didn’t last long, but the numbers of American miners moving into the area prompted Governor James Douglas of the new colony of British Columbia to order the construction of an all-British trail between Hope and Rock Creek. That trail was built by the Royal Engineers under the supervision of Edgar Dewdney; Highway 3 now follows its route, and you can take this road to return to the Okanagan Valley at Osoyoos.

mule deer

focus Deer

The fields and pastures along this highway are favourite grazing grounds for deer, especially in the late evening or early morning. White-tailed deer are common in the valley bottoms, while mule deer are widespread in the forested hills. They are easy to distinguish—white-tails have broad tails that are brown on top and fluffy white below. When disturbed, a white-tailed deer raises its tail as it prances away, waving it like a big, white flag. Mule deer are named for their large ears but are best identified by their narrow, black-tipped tails. When frightened, they bounce away on stiff legs in a manner totally different from white-tails.

Male deer grow antlers each spring; white-tails’ antlers have a single main beam with vertical tines coming off it, while those on mule deer grow in a series of Y-shaped divisions. Antlers are made of bone and initially covered by skin and a velvety fur; in late summer the males rub this skin off before sparring during the autumn rut. After the mating season, the antlers fall off and are not replaced until the following spring.

White-tailed deer do well in rural landscapes where pastures are mixed with wooded thickets for cover, and you can sometimes count many dozen along Highway 33 in a single evening. Mule deer winter on south-facing hillsides where snow cover is relatively low.