Battle Bluff

March 22, 2025

680m

Kamloops, BC

Battle Bluff is one of the lowly pimples in the vicinity of Kamloops and despite being officially named, this one does not boast over 100 m prominence. I noticed it years ago from simply browsing the maps. Theoretically I should not have much interest in it but this hike offers some notable reward-to-effort ratio and is starting to become a hot spot on the social media. I twisted my ankle roughly two weeks earlier and I couldn’t do much beyond the basic walking. On top of that the weather was shitty in the vicinity of the coast. Clair also expressed some interest in road-tripping so upon seeing pockets of sunshine in Kamloops area I made the last minute decision for us.

We were tired so didn’t want to get up ridiculously early so we didn’t leave Vancouver until 8:30 am in the morning. We also stopped for breakfast in Abbotsford but then made a single dash up and over the Coquihalla corridor. The weather was shitty as expected, but had become sunnier after passing Merritt. We made to Kamloops in time for lunch so the first stop was actually a Japanese styled ramen restaurant. The food was reasonable for Kamloops standard. It was already in the afternoon when we left the restaurant and the drive to the trail-head took another half an hour. The last portion of the drive was on some unpaved FSRs and the road was a little bit rougher than I thought. I had decided to take the Subaru mostly for the winter conditions at the Coquihalla but the Subaru also became handy here.

Our first stop in Kamloops was for lunch…

Clair was working while waiting for our meal

There’s a reason why this restaurant was called “Tiger Ramen”

Another photo from Tiger Ramen restaurant

There are two parking lots and we were lucky to be arriving late so the main lot was actually fairly empty. There weren’t a lot worth noting about the hike itself as this was a very basic outing. It was overall longer than I thought with notable up-and-downs, but the trail quality was quite decent. I was able to walk mostly “normally” but was still limping on rougher sections. The bump expectedly offered excellent views down towards Kamloops Lake and there were actually many different spots to take in the views. We even traversed beyond the true summit to enjoy some solitude.

We encountered an abandoned and rusted vehicle

We met a couple large dogs on this trail

Another dog that seemed a bit more friendly

Clair playing with yet another dog, in front of Kamloops Lake

Me somewhere along the trail with the typical terrain behind

This is looking towards the east end of Kamloops Lake

Xinran (Clair) and myself on the summit of Battle Bluff

It was eventually the time to head home because we had only budgeted one day for this lengthy road trip. We didn’t want to get home too late as we both had work/school on the following day. I decided to spend an extra half an hour to drive us back through Highway 5A corridor as there were some thawing lakes as recommended by some articles. I think we made the right decision as the views were indeed great in the late afternoon lightings. I eventually got us back to the city in time for a late night hotpot dinner.