New (old) Arawana Area Trail

Last Fall I happened upon the remnants of an old trail near the Arawana Beer Run, just above the 'Cow's End' entrance at the north end of the Mice, on the north side of Arawana Rd. This afternoon I returned to the spot, bent on scoping it out, running a GPS track and doing some cleanup. I spent a few hours on route, hacking, sawing and picking up deadfall - and am mightily impressed at what I have stumbled upon!

It appears that there has not been a mountain biker or hiker on this route in several, if not many, years. I inquired about the route with numerous old-school trail builders, but no one was able to shed any light on who might have created it or what it was called. My hunch is that it may have been the work of Pete Gratton, but that is just a guess, based on the fact that he spent many hours in the area “back in the day”.

At any rate, the trail is well laid out, sports a few technical features – most of which are still in pretty good shape, and a beauty ‘flow’. It is well worth saving and bringing back into use. On that note; the reason that I am describing this route is that I seek some trail-maintenance assistance. If any of you are into ‘giving back’ to the sport, please contact me at digital “at” Canada “dot” com.

From the bits that I have GPS’d and overlaid onto Google Earth, it looks like this trail makes for the heart of the forest between the Arawana Beer Run and Arawana Rd. Nice country!

Andrew D.

it was indeed Peter who built the trail, I rode it with him a number of years ago. It's been out of service since the few big wind storms Penticton's had... A friend and I went and 'tried' to ride it after the storm and it was not fun.... spent most of our time climbing over logs rather than riding, and there was a clear cut (trees/forestry) for part of the trail.

UPDATE: It turns out that the trail in question is called "G to the T"

I do believe that you are however, referring to the Arawana Beer Run, AKA; the 'Naramata Beer Run'. If so, it has been cleaned top to bottom by Doug Lenny in 2010. I have ridden it four times this year and am impressed with all of the work put into it. That is the only trail in the area that runs through the clear-cut.

The trail I referred to in the missive above is a much smaller, much shorter connector that runs from what is called the the 621 landing, just north of the point where Arawana FSR and Mt. Randolph FSR junction, down to the Cow's End trailhead (Mice).

If one ignores the Mt.Randolph FSR, and continues north along Arawana FSR, they will soon see a small driveway (road) leading into a clearing on their left. This is an excellent spot to begin a drop through the bottom of the Arawana Beer Run; heading straight through the clearing to the west, and into a second clearing just beyond it.

One may (now) also use the 621 clearing as a means of accessing the Mice. This is done by hanging a hard left turn immediately upon entry into the 621 clearing, and seeking the rock cairns I have erected. This cool little trail more or less shadows the Arawana FSR, and pops out at the Cow's End trailhead. This is an excellent spot to enter the Mice, as it allows a massive array of trail options. See the map titled 'Mousterpiece' on the main website (www.bikepenticton.com) for a great overview of the Mice and it's northern trail heads. I have not yet added 'G to the T' to the Mice map, but will soon.

My wife and I have just finished clearing G to the T of all debris and dead-fall; its fast, flowy and very enjoyable, with a couple of ramps / log rides. Check it out, but be careful of the failing condition of the one massive log ride - walk it first!

Andrew D.

This Pic' gives you an idea of the area. Yellow is the Beer Run, Green is the Mice, Black represents roadways and red indicates 'G to the T'; short, sweet and fun! (1.8km)