Okanagan Mountain Circuit: Wild Horse Canyon

Okanagan Mountain Park was burned by the wildfires of 2003, and there are only patches of trees that were not incinerated, but the understory has now grown up and the gullies, canyons, and low spots are all full of spring growth. Shrubs, perennial wildflowers, grasses, and annuals cover the rocky slopes among the blackened stumps.

We picked Okanagan Mountain for a backpacking trip mainly because it is a lower-elevation area that can be done in the early season. We picked a 3 day loop route, covering much of the rugged terrain of the park, hiking long days to designated campsites. We found the trails a bit grown over and sometimes a little hard to see, but we stayed on track and covered 42 km with a lot of elevation gain and loss over 3 days.

Our first day start was near the designated BC Parks parking area next to Lakeshore Road. We shuttled vehicles a bit since the unofficial Wild Horse Canyon Trailhead farther down the road has limited parking. This trailhead is much better (shorter, better graded) than the main route (Boulder Trail), but there is no signage there. It starts just above a service building 1.8 km down the road. The trail climbs through forest up to a junction witht the CN Trail. We turned right and followed the Wild Horse Canyon Trail for the next 12km. The first section goes up and down, working its way to the head of the canyon. Much of Okanagan Mountain is a series of bluffs, rocky hills, and outcrops, but Wild Horse Canyon is a deep canyon with marshes in the bottom, set between steep cliffs. It runs for about 6km southwest, opening up onto a grassland bench above the lake. Straight ahead is a steep drop down to two marine campsites – Buchan Bay and Commando Bay. We turned left instead at that junction and climbed over the ridge continuing southeast to the Goode's Creek Canyon drainage. We decended steeply down to the lake to camp at the marine campsite there, finishing a 15km hike for that day.

We found the hike from the trailhead to the start of Wildhorse Canyon pleasant. The canyon route, though was grown over and muddy. Mosquitoes were abundant and poison ivy often lined the trailside. Views were limited. We were happy to be through the canyon. The final section was up hills and down gullies at the end of a warm, muggy day, then the last kilometre was steep downhill to the Goode's Creek Campsite. We liked this spot on Okanagan Lake.. It had two picnic tables, a number of tent sites on the sand, a running creek, a firepit and an outhouse. The site is fairly open next to a small beach. All of the marine campsites in the Park are nice, but there may be power boats in season and we could hear the highway across the lake. To do the circuit as a backpack, hikers must go down to one of the marine campsites and Goode's Creek is farther around the mountain on the loop than the others. We were happy to get our packs off and set up camp after a long day.