Alpine Images

Apex Mountain, British Columbia

The day turned into an odyssey. We first stopped in Penticton where we encountered a 10 K road race that was just finishing up. An old steam driven paddle ferry and several tugboats added an interesting ambience to the shoreline. Penticton is near the south end of Lake Okanogan and is truly a splendid bucolic sort of place. The boats and a rose garden provided opportunities to take some nice pictures. These towns here in the Okanogan valley are like all the other Canadian cities I have been in – interested in beautifying themselves with fine flowers and landscaping. The aesthetic aspects of living are so much more important here than in many places I have been.

The system of natural lakes here eventually feed into the Columbia River in the US. The outflow of these lakes is controlled by a system of weirs at Okanogan Falls. It proved an interesting place to visit. This we did on the way to a locally known ice cream emporium called Tickleberries. This shop proved a pleasing family sort of business. It is really enjoyable to be in a place that does not have every one of the American fast food franchises.

After large bowls of high fat, high taste ice cream, we doubled back slightly to Summerland for a memorial birthday party for an 87 year old man, Willis Greenaway, who died last week. He was very active in the running community and was apparently one of Canada’s great runners. He ran four marathons when he was 83. He ran up until a year ago. Dwight was once very active in this community and knew a number of the people there at the party. Colorful platters of tasty food were nicely presented and we left well fed.

We departed the party after some pleasant snippets of conversation and drove a short distance to an experimental agricultural research facility that has a really impressive and colorful botanical garden overlooking the lake valley. It was easy to make many grand photos at this garden. My next travelogues on British Columbia will be colorful, if nothing else. Happy picnics and reunions were taking place at different venues in the garden. There was even a working steam train on a trestle across a deep gorge. The gardens have the calm civilized sensibility that I have found in British gardens, and in other Canadian gardens.

A drive of some 40 miles up a winding mountain road took us to the summit of Apex mountain, about 8,000 feet above the research station in altitude. The alpine sensibility is rather pleasing. I found it expansive to be in this pristine environment and to take calendar quality pictures without effort. Apex Mountain is a destination ski resort with the large central resort surrounded by a mixture of houses, condos, and hostels. The most satisfying sound in the world has to be the quiet whistle of wind through the alpine trees. The place felt like a ghost town. Apparently, no one is here except when the place is cloaked in deep winter snows. Dwight and I roamed around the grounds and buildings of the cross-country ski club. This was the venue for part of the 1988 winter Olympics.

We ended up driving down an old logging road from the backside of the mountain. For certain this road would never end up on the grid of any kind of tourist brochure or map. We never saw another vehicle and knew we were out there by ourselves in a totally remote region. We gave back 8,000 feel of elevation on this unmarked dirt road. The brakes overheated and Dwight was profoundly stressed by the experience of getting down off the mountain. We stopped at one point to diagnosis the brakes and were able to determine that fluid loss was on the low-pressure side of the brake system and the brakes could probably be used safely, if very slowly. I was immediately reminded of my experience in 2003 getting down of off Mount Mitchell in a friends van, sans brakes. Barbara was nearly beside herself in fright from the heights on the drop offs. Dwight was greatly relieved to get down to that valley floor and find the brakes coming back to life after the hour-long descent.

Conversely, I found the experience coming down very pleasing and it afforded plenty of unhurried opportunities to make many grand pictures. The valley looked like something out of Switzerland and the descent afforded so many different aspects for grand images. There was even a small ancient church and graveyard far below on the valley floor that made for fine images. Several wild horses made for some spectacular images half way down. These horses did not get spooked and I as able to get fairly close to them.

Changing colors on the walls of the valley provided a nice backdrop to a picnic dinner we had at a picnic area on the shore of Okanogan Lake. We had a fine meal by candlelight and were finally driven back to the car by the chill that came into the edge of night. I found myself staying close to the several little candles we had lit. The torrid heat and humidity of South Carolina was long forgotten. We thawed out back at the house in the grand hot tub that Dwight and Barbara enjoy every day.