Cycling

MYRA CANYON WAS THE CROWN JEWEL OF THE KVR, its 18 graceful trestles shaped by chief engineer Andrew McCulloch to hug the contours of the canyon walls. It was also the site of the fire’s worst destruction, home to all 12 fallen bridges. The largest trestle was 150 metres long and 37 metres tall, but now looks like a pile of Douglas fir timbers. Just seven months before the fire, the Myra Canyon section of the KVR had been named a National Historic Site. So after the embers cooled in late 2004, the provincial and federal governments set about rebuilding the trestles, at a cost of $13.5 million. Constuction was underway during our visit last fall, and the trestles reopened in June. (See sidebar on page 3.)

Bridges outside the canyon miraculously survived the fires. At Bellevue Creek, red fire retardant staining the trestle is the only evidence of the tragedy. We survey the elegant curve of a 238-metre-long, 65-metre-tall steel-plate girder bridge spanning the ravine. Bursts of yellow alder punctuate the evergreen forest below.

Kruger leans on the railing and gazes into the expanse. He started leading bike trips through the Monashee Mountains 14 years ago. A tall, gregarious 46-year-old, he has also been a competitive skateboarder, and 15 years earlier, an amateur racecar driver. Since that time, he’s guided more than 10,000 cyclists through Myra Canyon.

In the summer of 2003, Kruger sat in his downtown store watching soot rain down on Kelowna. The fire burned for three weeks and “spread a football field a minute,” he recalls. “It felt as if a family member were dying.” The fire pushed Kruger to seek a new focus for his cycle-tour business, and he found it in the Okanagan’s burgeoning wine industry.

There are now more than 130 wineries in British Columbia, up from just 14 in 1988. Almost 100 of them are in the Okanagan, spread out over 250 kilometres and neatly bisected by the KVR. At Hillside Estate Winery & Bistro, we encounter a conveniently positioned trailside tasting room. Still wearing our bike helmets, we saunter up to the fir-topped bar and work our way down a list of offerings. “This one’s like red velvet in a bottle,” says our server, pouring a 2005 Merlot, “very gently chocolate, cherry, vanilla.”

We continue the rhythm of cycling followed by fine wine, and the next day, we take a 20-kilometre cruise down a scenic section of the KVR outside of Penticton. When we arrive at the trail’s shortest tunnel, the 49-metre “Little Tunnel,” Kruger plants a long wooden tube in his mouth and lets loose with a train whistle that echoes from the rough-hewn walls.