In the Little Shuswap, BCWS crews continued to mop up guards east of Banshee Lake and adjacent to Banshee Road. After Tuesday, temperatures should return to normal, with cooler days, more humidity and longer nights allowing for a better environment to manage the flames. Possible minimal precipitation is forecast for the region on Tuesday evening (Aug. I think the bike rental shop is moving from Spooner to the end of the trail in July 2012.The BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) said that while there had been an increase in fire behaviour in the Bush Creek East blaze in the Shuswap, there had been no significant change to the size of the wildfire, which remains at 43,000 hectares and out of control.īCWS information office Mike McCulley warned of several major safety hazards in the area, including danger trees. If you plan to do turn-around option get an early start in order to avoid the crowds on the trail. If I did it again I would start at Spooner Lake and at end of the flume part of trail turn around and ride back to trail head. The only scary part for me was the 40 foot walk through the landslide area. You would fall a looong way if you fell off the trail but the chances are slim (the shuttle driver says he doesn't know of anyone that has taken this route but said injuries do occur going down the sandy road at the end). The flume trail hugs side of mountain (it is an old flume bed once used as water source for Virginia City) but pretty buff and not very steep or difficult. The scenery on the whole trip is good, on flume part of trail the views of the lake are awesome. I'm 50 year old intermediate biker (couple of 2 hour rides a week and the gym) and made it up the climb fine with a few stops. A dirt road climbs for 4 miles and goes around small lake, a trail descends the 'flume' for ~5 miles then a very sandy steep roadbed goes down to the shuttle pickup. This is the perfect vacation bike ride, it's easy to rent bikes at trail head with nice people at Spooner lake, ride the trail then take their shuttle back to shop (google 'flume bike trail' for rental info). Bottom line: If you attempt for the first time, understand that it will take more effort than you probably expect! I can say with confidence that if we had better understood the challenge it would be, we definitely would have passed on this ride. Overall, our biggest disappointment was that we felt misinformed about the degree of difficulty. The shuttle service back to the trail head is a must unless you want to spend another three hours +/- getting back. However, the rental shop at Spooner Lake was great and the equipment was also nice. No doubt the views are divine but after all the toil it takes to get to them (+/- 8 miles) we were in less of an admiring mood. Unfortunately, we spent a good deal of time walking our bikes secondary to the steep climbs, sandy terrain, and occasional technical turns. We are both quite fit (cross-training exercise 3-4x/week minimum) and casually road bike fairly frequently. Our ride quickly went from enjoying to surviving as this trail was much more demanding than expected of described. The Flume Trail was highly recommended and so we gave it a shot. My wife and I wanted to moutain bike during the first part of our Honeymoon when staying in North Lake Tahoe.
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