We returned to the Orchard Lake Trails for a hike in the rain.   Everything was very green and there were lots of puddles and some muddy sections, but the route is all on double tracks with easy grades.   This is a good area to walk or bike, a pleasant journey in the forest.   Trails have horse-and-hiker signs posted on trees at junctions and are numbered.   There are many trails in the area, but we chose to do a lollipop loop past Chalforchie Lake.

For your first time to these trails, this would be the recommended route.   Drive up Highway 5 toward McLure and turn onto the Orchad Lake Road.   This is a good forest service backroad.   Pass Loon (Struthers) Lake and watch for a signed side road for Coyote Lake.   Park here.   Walk to Coyote Lake and at the edge of the lake, turn onto a grassy track west.   Continue past Chalforchie Lake on a good double track.   The trail drops down a ways to the west.   We could hear cars racing over at Black Pines across the river on the edge of the hill.   Continue around the loop keeping an eye on signs.   A junction is reached at Grouse Lake and the loop turns north past Orchard Lake (barely seen through the forest to the east) and then along the shores of Chalforchie Lake back to the start.   This was 12 km and it took us three hours. 

We also chose to make the driving into a loop route by continuing up the Orchard Lake Road to Badger Lake and back by Knouff Lake to the Sun Peaks Road.     There are a number of junctions on the way up the hill, most of them unmarked.  If you try this road loop, use the BC Backroads Mapbook or bring a GPS.