Set the odometer to Zero at Bear Creek Provincial Park. Turn left onto Bear CReek Main forest service road at 1.7 km turn right when the odometer reaches 3.8 km (The turn is just after the 3 km mile sign) onto a small dirt road and veer right then stay left all the way to the TOP! One of a few Okanagan hiking trails that are adequate for a 4X4 and leads all the way to the top of an Okanagan mountain.
A large area of Blue Grouse Mountain and sections off of Bear Creek Main FSR are motorized recreation areas. You can hike up to the top of Blue Grouse or into Blue Hawk Mine but if you do be aware of fast moving bikes and such on the trails!
Once you find your way to the Blue Grouse Summitt you will find panorama views of Okanagan Lake and lots of areas to explore. If you are lucky, you might get to see hanggliders launching from the side of Blue Grouse as well. There is one area on the side of the mountain that is a popular launching site.
we drove up blue grouse on april 17, 2011. there was a little water on the road/trail up, but i never put it in 4×4. snow on the road at the top too, but the summit was clear. too bad it was snowing/raining/hail/mega-cloudy, so the view wasn;’t so fantastic, but the drive up was still a blast. detoured to the mine on the way down. that road was worse than the drive up the mountain. mine was still there. so was the rat.
Hey there Darkest1, I have been telling a few others about Blue Grouse Mine and am slowly building up enough guts to go farther in myself! 🙂 Thanks for the intel on the drive up to Blue Grouse Summit.
On another note, I apologize for the hundreds of Free Camping posts but after I (and the folks I have hired to help me out with them) have them all completed, I will have a map that will show where all the Free Camping locations are. Plus the map will be searchable, so if a person puts in his/her city, the map will show all the free camping locations near selected city. So as I have been hoping to do for years, I have finally figured out how to create the menu that will work for us. So that means that all of your awesome posts (you are truly an awesome adventurer) will be located under the “contact” tab and then under authors. Also, any hiking locations in Kelowna will soon be listed under the Hiking Trails tab in an effort to bring back the local feeling for TracksAndTrails. So keep coming back and letting us know about your adventures!
oh – one last thing – you can upload pictures really easy here as well now – just click the “Share Outdoor Pictures” tab and select y our pic on your computer – title it and upload it. The cool thing is that if the picture has the title of a recreation site (like James Lake for example) then the picture will show automatically on the rec. site with the same name. I hope it will catch on after a few years….hahaha
Here is a link to the Blue Hawk mine – rat pictures and all!!!! https://www.tracksandtrails.ca/2009/11/rex-virtue-rediscovers-an-abandoned-mine-on-blue-grous-mountain-near-kelowna-and-vernon-bc/
hey… if you ever want to go into the mine, let me know. i’m always in for some kinda of adventure. you can get to the end of the mine and back out again in less than 10 minutes. the worst part is the wet spot at the opening.
sounds like the rec-site map will be pretty cool…can’t wait. some are not there anymore (i heard thirst lake site by summerland /princton was flooded to make the resorvoir). I’m slowly checking them off as i visit them. camping this weekend, maybe visit a few more… snowy road dependant. maybe up around beaver lake (it’s close to home). keep up the good work.