Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

October 10, 2023

610m

Kelowna, BC

There are several summits in the immediate vicinity of Knox Mountain Park in Kelowna. The highest and the only one with over 100 m prominence is Mt. Knox slightly to the east of the park, but the most popular and the most accessible is “Knox Mountain” on the west side. Over 14 years ago I had driven up the service road to the summit with my parents. I thought if I were to revisit this peak I would include that officially-named Mt. Knox, but due to the closure of the service road (fire hazards) we were forced to hike up from the bottom so there wasn’t enough time to include the extra objective. That’s fine as I just needed to come back another time to finish the business.

The decision to hike Knox Mountain was completely random and spontaneous as I wouldn’t on purposely plan a day-trip to the Okanagan to just “repeat” this particular objective. Around 3 pm on Thanksgiving Monday I received a bunch of pictures from Lulu W. that she and Pan had caught in a car accident somewhere in the vicinity of Salmon Arm. There’s no injury but the car was wrecked and needed to be towed. They were able to find a hotel to stay an extra night in Salmon Arm but they still needed a ride to get back home for work, so I offered the oppourtunity to pick them up. I hadn’t driven out that way in this entire year so part of me was also looking forward to the road trip, even though it needed to be done within 24 hours. I finished work at 8:30 pm and made a single dash to Kamloops, but from Kamloops to Salmon Arm it was pouring. The lanes were not very visible such that I had to be very slow and careful. I eventually made to the hotel at 1:30 am and caught a couple hours of sleep. My original plan was to hike Battle Bluff in Kamloops on the following day, but Pan needed to pick up something from the wrecked car and the car was towed to Armstrong and the towing company wouldn’t open until 9 am. It wouldn’t make sense to go backwards towards Kamloops anymore, but I figured that we could head southwards instead and do something in Kelowna area.

I was debating between Knox Mtn. and Giants Head but eventually opted for the shorter drive. We learnt at the very last minute at the trail-head that the service road to the summit was closed entirely. That’s okay as we just needed to earn the elevation gain (300 m) ourselves, but that also meant we wouldn’t be doing Mt. Knox given the time constraint. The hike was actually quite scenic with views for most of the way. This is very contrary to the small objectives in the Fraser Valley. In the Okanagan area the smaller peaks usually offer better views. We indeed did not have enough time to traverse to Mt. Knox so I made the call to descend after spending about 20 minutes on the summit. We didn’t even have a lot of time to have a proper lunch, nor is there any decent restaurant in Kelowna, so we just grabbed some basic food in Tim Horton’s. Pan and I took turn driving the next 4 hours back to Vancouver, and I eventually got back to White Rock at 6 pm. I missed the first hour of work but I was able to reschedule it at the last minute.

Below are some of the pictures from the July 2009 trip…