The car by the creek

This car was probably deliberately driven off the embankment above decades ago. In the years since, lovely walking trails have been developed both above and where the car now lies. For years the car was a highly visible blot in an otherwise pristine setting. Gradually, with the assistance of passersby who enjoy balancing rocks, the environment is reclaiming it.

Mossy cable

Near the abandoned site of New Denver's original hydro-electric generator, an old steel cable emerges from the moss and woodruff.

Forest fire safety

"Get the habit. Prevent forest fires." 

Trailside sign from years gone by, found and re-mounted on a cedar.

Sandon hydrant

Upper Galena-Alamo Loop

Upper Galena-Alamo Loop
Distance: 4.97 km (3.1 mi).
Route type: Loop
Suitable for: Walking, mountain-biking, running, children
Elevation change: 226 metres up, 226 metres down

Technical difficulty rating:  
Navigational difficulty rating:  

This is a sweet little 5k single-track loop that begins at Three Forks, at the junction of Highway 31A and the Sandon Road. There's a parking area on the right just after you turn off the highway. From here you walk a few dozen metres down the road and hang a right onto the trail. Follow the trail as it crosses the creek, and then begins to meander into the forest on the far side. Sometimes it's a little muddy right here, but the rest of the trail tends to be pretty dry. In a hundred metres you'll come to a prominent trail junction marked with a signpost. This is the beginning of the loop.

You can do the loop in either direction, of course, but clockwise (beginning up the H-Road towards Sandon) puts most of the moderately technical stuff on the downhill. The sign says the road isn't maintained, but few hundred metres you'll be taking is in perfect shape.

The trail climbs for about 300 metres, after which you'll take the first hard right onto the Alamo Wagon Road, otherwise known as the Old Sandon Road. Before the highway was built, it was this wagon track which supplied Sandon from New Denver, running on the south side of Carpenter Creek. The loop follows the wagon road for about two kilometres, gradually downhill most of the way. There are a couple of fun small bike jumps built along the way if you're so-inclined, and the usual rickety boardwalks and bridge-lets over freshets and mucky sections. Overall the trail is rooty and rocky but not too technically challenging for fair-weather mountain-bikers.

After a couple of kilometres it's time to leave the Old Sandon Road and head downhill towards Alamo. This is the one significant fork leading off to the right and it's hard to miss -- unless you're screaming along on a bike. The connector here will take you past a recently collapsed house from a century ago, and through the ruins of the old Alamo Siding railway stop, where high-grade ore was loaded into railcars. The descent here is fairly steep. A few technical sections would be best walked by inexperienced cyclists.

Below the Alamo Siding ruins, you'll get spit out on the Galena Trail across from the outhouse. The cable-car is just a hundred metres to the left, if you're inclined to look it over, take a jaunt across, or help other trail-users to cross. The loop itself, though, heads back towards Three Forks by taking a right turn on the Galena Trail. From here you've got a rolling gradual uphill of a couple of kilometres until you meet up with the junction marked by the signpost above.

Retrace your steps across the creek bridge to the parking area and you're done!

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Galena-Alamo Loop

Galena-Alamo Loop
Distance: 14.6 km (9.03 mi).
Route type: Loop
Suitable for: Walking, running, biking
Elevation change: 406 metres up, 406 metres down

Technical difficulty rating:  
Navigational difficulty rating:  

This route combines the lower extents of two great trails, the Galena Trail and the Alamo Wagon Road. They run along opposite sides of Carpenter Creek. At the upstream (east) end, a short but steep connecting trail links the trails by way of Alamo Siding. An easy couple of kilometres along Highway 6 links the trails at the downstream end. There's a fair bit of elevation change, as one would expect, following the course of a mountain creek. The steepest section is the southwest portion, the 2.5 kilometres of the trail nearest New Denver, along the south side of the creek. This is a bit of a hard-core grunt on a bike with a 10% grade, and it follows a gravel road where the terrain and scenery are less interesting than elsewhere. On a bike I prefer to do the route clockwise to take this as a final hair-raising downhill at 50 km/h. When running or walking I tend to go counter-clockwise.

There are two logical starting points along Highway 6 for this loop. The first is at the bottom of the Alamo Road. Park in the gravel area just to the southeast of the bridge in New Denver. The other option is to drive north on Highway 6 to the pull-out 750 metres north of the hydro transformer station and pick up the Galena Trail there.

Today I rode my bike and did the loop clockwise. Starting at the pull-out just north of town, I picked up the little wooded piece of the Galena Trail that creates a shortcut between Highway 6 and 31A. This is a lovely segment that is a shade under a kilometre long. It dumps you out on Highway 31A, where you head uphill for about a hundred metres, take a right onto Denver Siding Rd. and the next left towards the Highway Maintenance yard. Here the Galena Trail becomes a proper trail again, gradually sloping upwards at a sedate 1-2% grade. About 4.5 km along, you reach the cable car.

After crossing the cable car, the steep hill takes you to the old Alamo Siding site. About 20 metres after passing the main ruins of Alamo Siding, a trail branches off to the right through the grass, heading immediately uphill. It crosses some of the wreckage, and then continues upwards through the woods, eventually arriving at this tumbledown supply house in a meadow. It dates back a hundred years and was still mostly standing until just a few years ago. Now its roof and main timbers have crumbled. There's still a lovely garden of now-feral irises out front, and it's still a property with an amazing view.

The trail passes in front of the house and then winds past it on the left side. Continue uphill a little further and you'll meet the Alamo Wagon Road.

Turn right on the Alamo Wagon Road and follow it as it meanders mostly downhill. It's very rooty, and there are places where scree slopes lend a fair bit of technical exposure to the trail. It can be tempting to get going fairly fast on a bike on parts of this trail, but keep your eyes well ahead as the trail has a tendency to veer to the left with no warning, in order to avoid plummeting off some pretty steep cliffs. It's a pretty straight-forward trail to follow otherwise.

There are some lovely views of the creek far below, the Valhalla mountains, the lake and New Denver to be had from the trail. Eventually as you near New Denver it widens a bit and then later becomes a gravel road. Just stay to the creek (right) side and carry on straight ahead and straight down.

In no time at all you'll be back down in New Denver. From here you just take a right on Highway 6 and head north out of town to your starting point.

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Alamo

The town once known as Alamo, BC, gateway to the boomtown of Sandon, once stood here on a railway siding.

Bosun progress

Ahh, that's better. The blank flat facade of the Bosun Hall is getting a roof to cover the entry.

Bosun Hall facelift, continued

Facelift

The Bosun Hall is getting a long overdue facelift. 

Hardware

A display case of hardware from the early days of our town, on the wall outside the current-day hardware store.

Waiting

Another storefront, opposite the vacant ones in yesterday's post. This one isn't vacant, though, just on a winter hiatus. A pottery shop and café will open in the spring. The building recently endured an extensive renovation and nice, historically-sensitive facade upgrade.

Log cabin

This is the first small cabin built, around 1970, by a US Vietnam draft dodger who moved to the wilderness and taught himself log-home building.

The Lancet

Built in 1912 by local physician Dr. Brouse, the eighteen-foot long Lancet was restored a decade or so ago and is on display behind the Silvery Slocan Museum. Brouse built it in the attic of the local hospital, from where it had to be removed using a block and tackle through a window.

Christmas Day at the Kohan

Christmases past

Behind the museum, a turn-of-the-20th-century barrel and Christmas tree stand.

Internment House

During WWII there were scores of these houses built in the "Orchard" area of New Denver for interned Japanese and Japanese-Canadian families. Fourteen by twenty-eight feet, some housed two families. Many of these houses still exist, now upgraded with insulation, indoor plumbing and electricity, but most have had large extensions added on. This one lives on in its original diminutive dimensions.

The Bosun

Named after the Bosun mine, profits from which funded the bequest to the community in the early 20th century, the facade of the Bosun community Hall is crumbling. The interior is still very functional and upgrades within and [eventually] without are proceeding thanks to a hard-working fund-raising society.

Barge

A half-submerged barge, probably the better part of a hundred years old. Before the road up the valley was paved, the lake was the easiest way to get stuff to and from the community reliably.

Sandon Cemetery

Original headstones, most of which had toppled or otherwise succumbed to the passage of time over many winters, are now in the museum. Wooden replacements mark the graves. The cemetery is hidden in the forest a mile or two from Sandon. Sandon is now a ghost town, but in the late 1890's it was a booming silver mining metropolis. Miners who died without the means to have their remains shipped back to families were buried here.