Quad Trails from Christina Lake

[jefferyanderson]

Hi All,
I'm going to be renting a cabin on Christina Lake for the first week of September - haven't spent much time there before but the last couple times I drove through I was in love with the area. I'm assuming the 1st week of September will still have nice weather.

I'm wondering if there are any good quad trails around there that:
a) gain some good elevation (for good views)
b) aren't too technical
c) maybe have some old mines/history?

I've gone to Sandon a few times and I'm worried it's ruined me, I've never found anything close to that good anywhere else.

Kootenay Summit on Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Anyway, back to the question, does anyone know of some good quad trails close to Christina Lake? If so, can you please give me some info on how to find them?

Thanks and Best Regards,
Jeff

 

[kootenaycat]

Not much right around the lake for views, Stewart ck road west of Christina lake gives you a view of the north end of the lake but not much else. It does tie in with the Burrel ck road and you can ride forever once you're on that network. If you want a mine or 2 to check out, unload on the Paulson bridge detour road (west entrance) and take the first road on the left. It goes to Burnt Basin (no basin that we ever saw up there ) and you'll find a couple of old mines to explore. One is right along the road, easy to miss if you're riding fast, the rest you'll have to ride around to find, it's been a few years since I've been up there and they've done some logging since. There's also a mine along the detour road between the Basin road and the house further along, watch for it on your left at road level. Also you can access the railbed from the detour road by riding past the house (not private on the road, public access through). Back to Christina lake is a big washout not passable by quad but you will go through a tunnel not far from the bridge. The other way will take you to the Bulldog tunnel and all the way to Castlegar where you will have a lake view of Lower Arrow lake along with 3 more tunnels and 3 trestles. There are numerous side roads/trails that you can explore as well, some go to the old Bulldog lookout (overgrown now) and down to Renata but somewhat technical, as well as the logging road to the Paulson highway where you can loop back to the railbed if you know the right turns. If you take the railbed don't pay attention to the signs, Trails BC doesn't want quads on it but it is still legal to ride it, just respect the other users as some corners are blind and you can come up on a bike quickly.


Pretty tough to beat scenery like Sandon, but you should head to Trout lake (Healy ck, Silver cup ridge, Fish river)and the East Kootenays (Bruce/Law ck, Horsethief ck along with others).