<\/a>Vernon is a city of approximately 60,000 people, nestled in between the gorgeous Okanagan and Kalamalka Lakes and surrounded by beautiful meadows and rolling hills. Our gracious hosts, Aaron and Monique took us for a tour of the city and out to dinner before calling it a night.<\/p>\nThe next morning we drove about ten minutes along Highway 6 towards Lumby before turning onto a dirt road at the foot of a mountain in the Noble Creek area. There we parked amongst several other trucks parked along the side of the road, already dozens of people deep in the trails on various types of motorized vehicles.<\/p>\n
With Aaron being extremely new to dirtbiking and, of course, John and I being from out of town, we literally had no idea where to go. We had been told by a few other riders that there were hundreds of trails that continue for many miles and that if we went up the logging road to kilometre 8 and hung a right by the cattle guard, we would find ourselves on a fun trail and to just follow that for a while, which we did.<\/p>\n
Blasting up the logging road was good practice for both Aaron and I who are more accustomed to sportbike riding than riding in the dirt, but it wasn\u2019t long before we found the cattle guard and turned onto an awesome single track trail. About medium difficulty for my skill level, the trail went through thick trees, over roots and around tight corners with some steep hills and rutted corners. Having little experience riding trails, I found parts of the ride pretty difficult, but was surprised that I was able to muster through most of it, albeit not very gracefully.<\/p>\n
Because most dirtbikes are so tall and because I\u2019m not, I thought that I would have way more difficulty kick-starting my bike if I crashed or stalled it. However, John had softened up the suspension for my weight and had taken my seat in to be altered, and I was always able to find a part of the trail that was raised a bit so my left foot could touch and I was high enough to be able to get a good kick.<\/p>\n
When I stalled or got stuck on the occasional nasty root, Mr. Pro Rider John Parker would yell from behind me, \u201cWait there, I\u2019ll start it for you and I\u2019ll ride it through this hard part.\u201d I yelled back through gritted teeth, \u201cI\u2019ll do it myself!\u201d (Which just so happens to be the first sentence that ever came out of my mouth as a kid). I squinted my eyes, looked up the hill, kick-started my bike and with legs flailing, powered up and through the tough part of the trail.<\/p>\n
Coming out of the first short portion of the trail we emerged in a wide open area underneath power lines that had windy trails carved throughout the middle and rolling paths along the sides. We also saw a few fluorescent pink arrows pointing towards the entrance of another single-track trail that disappeared into the depths of the forest so we decided to follow the signs.<\/p>\n
Apparently, a Can Am racecourse was marked out for a hare scramble the following day so we simply followed the pink markers and found ourselves blasting through an awesome trail that had all sorts of fun elements\u2014loose shale inclines, hard packed dirt switchbacks, wide muddy puddle ridden sections, steep hills with names like \u201celevator shaft\u201d, fast sections through open logged areas and beautiful sections that bordered Bardolph Lake.<\/p>\n
There were also a lot of cows. Several times we came zooming out of a skinny trail into a wider area where dozens of cows stood lazily staring. Something about the cows was pretty unnerving to me and when one started walking towards me I freaked out and zipped away yelling, \u201cthem cows could run at me and knock me over easily and then step on me!\u201d So, the guys had fun teasing me about the \u201ckiller cows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Aaron and I were pretty darned slow the first day and after doing only one loop that seemed to take forever, we rode back down the logging road and called it a day.<\/p>\n
We spent the following morning checking out Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park and the lakeside beaches, and afterwards headed back to the trails. This time we decided to hang a left at one part of the logging road and try our hand at some different types of trails. We found a wide open area with a few small jumps and a couple of banked corners where John tried to coach Aaron and I on proper jumping and cornering techniques. Dirt\/motocross riding has elements that are completely opposite to sportbike\/road riding so it was hard for Aaron and I to get concepts like sitting up close to the gas tank, pushing the bike underneath and leaning away from the bike instead of leaning with it. We also found some dustier rocky trails that ran alongside steep drop-offs that I wasn\u2019t too fond of riding on. It\u2019s one thing to crash and fall into a tree or bush, but it\u2019s another thing to crash and slide 50 feet down a long embankment or off the edge of a cliff. No thank you.<\/p>\n
On Monday morning we headed back to the trails as John and I wanted to get a fairly early start on the drive home and decided to run the marked course again, mostly for the convenience of knowing where we were and where we should go, but also because it was somewhat familiar.<\/p>\n
It was pretty amazing how much better we were the second time around and our speed picked up three-fold even though the difficulty of the course had risen because of the amount of people that must have raced on the trail the day before. The dirt was looser, deeper ruts in the corners and there were big rocks and boulders marring the trails in a few places.<\/p>\n
The hardest parts for me were the steep downhills and the super tight areas where you have to use all the controls at once, front brake, rear brake, feather the clutch, roll on the gas, shift. The other hard part I faced was fatigue. Without having much experience riding in the trails, I was using a lot more muscles than required and my arms were getting pumped up to the point of feeling like rocks and Jello at the same time. There were a few moments where my hands stopped working completely and I stalled out because I didn\u2019t have the hand strength to pull in the clutch, or I launched myself into the bushes when my right hand gave a jerk on the throttle instead of a smooth roll on.<\/p>\n
We called it a day after the first loop so that no one would get hurt from riding tired.<\/p>\n
Overall, it was an absolutely awesome three days of riding in the wilderness and exploring new terrain. Vernon charmed both John and I and impressed us with the scenery and the multitude of activities available in such a small area. The dirtbiking was outstanding and we met a lot of really nice people that were also enjoying the fun adventurous trails. The mountain biking too was impressive with trails in Kalamalka Lake Park and also down Silver Star Mountain, which enjoys a killer winter ski\/snowboard season.<\/p>\n
There are also dozens of world class golf courses in the area, beautiful roads for riding and as John found out, motocross tracks in nearby Kelowna and Kamloops. We had a blast in sunny Vernon and I enjoyed my first normal weekend in a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People always ask me, \u201cwhat are you doing this weekend?\u201d\u2014and I think to myself, a weekend; wouldn\u2019t it be nice to just have a weekend to do regular things like go to a lake, go camping, visit with friends or go riding, just for fun? The concept of the weekend is kind of foreign to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Vernon BC Dirt Biking Trails and off Roading Trip Adventures<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n