During the summer, I hopped into my sisters car with her daughter along with my wife and baby daughter and headed towards Banff, Alberta for the week. On the way to our first night in Sun Peaks, we stopped off for a short hike to Othello Tunnels in Hope. Now here’s a heads up for those who are planning to make a visit there. If you have a baby, I would not recommend bringing an umbrella stroller. We only packed a small umbrella stroller for the trip because it took up less room in the car which was already stuffed with all our luggage. The path to the tunnels and through the tunnels are not paved and are quite rocky. We ended up carrying my daughter Zoe by hand in her stroller through most of the rocky parts. That being said the tunnels are a great place to visit. From Vancouver its not that far of a drive either, I remember being able to get there in around 2-3 hours.
The entrance of the tunnels were a little foreboding. We did have a sense of awe when we walked to this point. This entrance is quite tall.
There was a chain link fence where couples left many “love locks” connected to it.
The tunnels can be a bit chilly to walk through but during the summer its quite nice. There is a river running alongside the tunnels.
My daughter Zoe who was having quite a good time as you can see, my wife Karen, my angsty preteen niece Jade, and my sister Helen.
My niece Jade and myself were the brave ones and carefully walked out onto the rocks of the river. In hindsight, I would probably not recommend doing this as the rocks are quite slippery but I wanted to get a shot of the flowing river. The tunnels themselves are about a 10-15 minute walk from the parking lot. I recommend having hiking shoes or runners as the path is not paved.
Interested in more hiking photos? Check out my shots from Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver. A more local destination in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.
Sun Peaks Grand
After Hope we headed to Kamloops for our first night at the Sun Peaks Grand resort hotel. The first thing we noticed when we hit Kamloops was the smell in the air. The forest fires nearby were making its way across BC. The skies were grey with smoke from the fires. It took a little getting used to but it was quite evident that fire season was in full swing unfortunately. We got to our hotel and proceeded to check in. The interior of the hotel was quite nice and led out to small village with restaurants. I haven’t been to Sun Peaks in over 10 years so it was all new to me again. They even have a go kart track next to our hotel! I didn’t try it though as I found it was quite expensive. I recall it being $25 for 3 runs.
We woke up early the next morning to get an early start on our day. I ventured out back to the go kart track which was empty. People were still sleeping in their beds as the clouds were rolling in.
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