Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

March 22, 2019

1019m

Penticton, BC

Mt. Nkwala is a lowly, but locally prominent summit immediately to the north of Penticton in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. This is not a popular hike on the internet judging by the available trip reports (I couldn’t even find a GPS track to download), but I’m sure most of the local hikers had gone up there. Most of these locals are against publication of trip reports.. A service road wraps up around the west and north side but the more scenic route ascends its steep south-east flanks linking up several trail systems. That would be the route I took.

This was the 4th, also the last day of my spring break peak-bagging trip in Okanagan Valley and I wanted something not committing, but at least somehow interesting. I was already tired of the area and thought about just driving home, but given the incredible weather I just had to stick around to finish the trip as planned. I crashed in my vehicle somewhere dark and quite within the city of Penticton the night before. In the morning I slept in and had a luxurious breakfast in a local McDonald’s before driving for the trail-head. The trail-head beside the old Kettle Railway path could only fit two vehicles and that further confirmed the “obscured” status of this peak on the internet.

The route starts by walking a short way due north along the old Kettle Railway path and then I got to hike down a (gated) paved road for ~50 meters before picking up a steep path that led to an old dirt road. In less than 1 km down that dirt road I bailed into the woods picking up a maze of paths/trails with horse shit almost everywhere anywhere. It was nearly impossible to not step on a pile of horse shit. I immediately found that using those game trails was more confusing than ascending straight up in the woods so I pretty much just picked my own way to intersect the next-level trail system at around 600 m elevation. For a while the trail was easy to follow but I got confused again at around 700 m elevation. Too frustrated to find the “correct trail” I decided to find my own way again and this time, mostly by bushwhacking along a rib feature wrapping around the east side of the peak. The route-finding was easy in the broad way and travelling in the open forest was straightforward.

At around 850 m elevation I made a 90-degree turn due west aiming for the summit area and it was here that I was punished by some knee deep post-holing. The snow was isothermal top to bottom even in the mid-morning and I sank to the bottom no matter how “careful” I stepped on. Wearing only trail-runners without gaitors meant I was soaked through in no time. I pushed through a stretch of deep snow and once the slope angle increased I could find dry ground again. The rest of the route to the summit was uneventful with occasional spots of post-holing. The view from the summit was not as good as advertised but nonetheless, I was satisfied.

After staying for over half an hour attempting to dry the shoes I decided to hike down. There are other routes that goes up to this summit but not being familiar with the area I decided to just retrace where exactly I went. I couldn’t remember how exactly I linked those trails but that’s why I brought the GPS device. At sections I was hiking down while holding and staring at the phone and needless to say, I had no issue reversing the route. I even found where that trail was near the 700-800 m zone and knew exactly why I missed it in the morning. The ground had turned super muddy and that further added to the challenge of dodging horse shits. I tried to be cautious but pretty sure I stepped on several piles of them, but oh well. The shoes were then washed in the lake so no big deal.

Instead of immediately driving back home I decided to take my time playing with some tourism near Penticton. This was only my second visit and my first time was just a 1-day road trip back in 2009 during high school.

The drive back home was a complete shit show. A trailer flipped over on Highway 97 south closing both directions of travel but thankfully I found a short-cut that linked me to the Okanagan Connector without having to wait for several hours. A couple hours later I was back in Fraser Valley and thank to the rush hour traffic the whole stretch from Chilliwack to Surrey was crawling at no more than 50-60 km/h, a good way to up one’s patience.