“Why don’t we have a sunrise hike” says my wife. And with that idea we actually managed to get our 3 teenage boys up at 4:30 AM Sunday Morning for a Sunrise Hike up Knox Mountain, a jewel of a park in Kelowna BC. The gate at the main entrance to the park was locked so we parked on the road and entered the park.
No sooner had we entered and my youngest son Zachary told me to quit looking at my GPS to catch the 3 deer grazing next to the tennis courts! I expect to see deer on Knox Mountain but usually further into the park near the playground or along the hike to Pauls Tomb.
The first stage of getting to the top of Knox Mountain.
No sooner had we got to Crown Lookout – the first lookout (picture above taken of the first Knox Mountain lookout after we hiked back down), that our boys, 16, 15 and 13 decided to leave us behind so I told them to meet us at the top. I could not go too fast as my broken rib that I received a few days earlier when a steep sidehill that I was hiking down got the best of me was ensuring a slow ascent.
As we climbed further up we found that the trail was somewhat visible as the city lights reflected off of the cloud cover. Cloud cover! ahh so much for a sunrise hike. We got to the top of Knox Mountain and actually were ahead of our boys by a few seconds. They took the paved road for most of the way. I guess they were going on short cut trails at least until the youngest fell and found a nasty little cactus as he hit the ground, which netted him several nice thorns in his hand that Mom had to remove once he got to the top. …ouch
Ready for the Sunrise!
At an altitude of 636 meters, we snapped a few pictures of the new William R. Bennett Bridge, enjoyed a drink of juice and breakfast bar, reflected on Jesus Christ’s gift and promise of a new life and began our descent back down the mountain.
How did we get here?
Pioneer Pavillion at the top of Knox Mountain