Thursday, 20 August 2020 13:39
Spectacular Kane Valley Equestrian campsite
Beautiful, newly completed Kane Valley Equestrian campsite now open
Reporting by Lorraine Stubbins
This fantastic new corral and campsite complex was recently built by the Recreation Sites and Trails of BC and a BCHBC Multi-Chapter initiative led by Scott Walker and
Rose Schroeder.
A completed campsite and corral. Pit toilet and manure pit in background.
.There are now12 sites with solid, spacious pipe corrals and one site where you can bring your own pens for a max of 13. Several large manure pits make for convenient clean up.
One group site which could fit 3 rigs snugly, has 6 corrals in a pod ( we are in that one) and another has 4 corrals in a pod shared by 2 adjoining campsites. Upper sites overlook the lake view.
There is no water in camp but a short walk to a stream has 2 designated horse water access points.
There has been some confusion about site availability and the way Scott explained it is that if you have horses, get here early ie by noon, because the deal is that if all the non-horse campsites are full and there are empty campsites up in the horse camp, then the non-horse campers cannot be turned away.
The volunteers built in rain and sunshine
Last night a guy was here from Oliver with his horse. His buddies were on their way from Armstrong. Non-horse campers were starting to come up here searching for sites, filling up the leftover spots by early evening.There were 3 sites filled with non-horse folks last night. The guys buddies did get a site thankfully. Anyone who was coming here late last night in the dark might not have found an empty site last night, although many corrals were empty.Today there are 3 horse sites with 2 corrals each, empty on Saturday at 4:30.
Great well-sign-posted trails, no single track, all double but with some grassy edges on a fair bit of trail. We did 16 miles in 5 hrs yesterday and 4 hrs on the Harmen Side today for 13 miles.
Lots of quads and dirt bikes are using the exact same trails at speed today Sat ( we did not encounter any on Friday morning).
Once asked to slow by us waving them down, they all were compliant but there are some areas where it could get a bit hairy with skittish stock and the visibility is poor. The motorized folks seemed unaware of etiquette when encountering horses but listened politely to our requests. More signage would likely be helpful so that the risks are better understood when horses meet loud fast bikes.
Maybe get out and away from camp early on weekends to avoid as many motorized on trails.
one of many teams of volunteers that made the Equestrian Campsite more than a dream.