Kettle Valley Rail Trail

Bicycling across BC on the historic KVR

The Kettle Valley Rail Trail is among the best known bike routes in Canada. Traversing some 650km (400 miles) from the Fraser Valley through mountains and deserts into the golden valleys of BC's southern interior, the trail passes through an almost shocking variety of scenery for such a short distance. Easily divisible into shorter trips, rarely exceeding an almost effortless 2% grade, and offering a nice blend of remote-feeling wilderness with ample resupply and bail-out points, it's a perfect introduction to off-road bike touring.

Originally opened in 1915 as an effort to prevent BC's silver ore from being siphoned off to the US via the more naturally navigable north-south routes, the Kettle Valley Railway was an engineering marvel for its time, taking nearly 20 years to complete and was, mile for mile, one of the most expensive tracks built on the continent. One glance at the complex topography of mountain ranges and tunnels and trestles and you'll quickly understand why. It served the southern communities for only a few decades, helping open up new towns and settlements, before being largely abandoned in the early 1960s and eventually turned into a recreational trail in the 1990s. You'll find information boards scattered along the way shedding light onto the area's rich history, mostly about the colourful characters and boom towns that have long disappeared into wilderness.

Officially the KVR extends between Hope and Midway, but is often combined with the Columbia and Western Trail to Castlegar or all the way to Fernie as part of the BC Trail. Unable to start in Hope due to a wildfire closure up the Coquihalla, we began our trip in Princeton and ended in Castlegar 12 days later, averaging a pretty leisurely 50km per day (which left lots of time for photo and swim and snack stops). As always, you can find some basic route info hidden on our search / explore page.

For the most part the condition of the trail is quite good, mostly gravel and even a few paved sections, but be prepared for a few rougher sections with plenty of rocky bits and sand pits. On route we met a few people who blamed ATVs for churning up the trail, but in many communities the only way to get funding to maintain the trail is to have people actually using the trail, and the people who want to use it mostly ride ATVs, so... it is what it is. We recommend a nice comfy saddle and at least 50mm / 2" tires if your bike can swing it, though we encountered a stalwart gentleman on 40mm tires who said it was perfectly fine, so maybe it just depends on how much discomfort you can put up with. I say live large and max out your bike's clearance if you can, why not? We suffered zero flats on even our smallest 48mm tires, but our arms were plenty numb from the constant gravel chatter and we did rattle a few bolts loose and broke a rack on one bike and a camera on another. But you'll be fine! It is not crazy rough. And anyway it's worth the effort.

You'll pass through a number of small towns and grocery stores, with a major resupply conveniently halfway in Penticton. Plan on carrying about 2 days of food at a time and capacity for at least 3 litres of water (plus a filter) — there are plenty of dry stretches. You can find a few campgrounds along the way, and probably hotels and bed & breakfasts (including the famed Chute Lake Lodge), but we mostly just wild camped whenever we could, including in a couple of spots we maybe should not have. But hey! Just between us.

We've travelled this stretch probably a hundred thousand times by car so it was especially neat to see it by bike. Mainly because the trail generally takes a different route entirely, but also because you just appreciate things differently when travelling so slowly. We almost always stop at the Deadwood Cafe in Greenwood, but maaan we really stopped this time. We parked there for a couple hours at least, sampling the entire menu seemed like. And then we got up and went to the neighbouring Copper Eagle Bakery too. Bike trips are like that. Bless them.