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Trail location: About 6 km South of Princeton; 2WD Type: Untracked; Snowmobile tracks; road; Trucks early in season Rating: Intermediate; hill climb Trail Distance: 17 km for complete circuit and return trip to Copper Mountain Road Elevation Gain: 280 metres Access: Leaving Princeton, drive east towrd Penticton on Highway 3 a little less than one km to RCMP station; turn RIGHT onto Copper Mountain Road; drive to the 6 km sign, then watch for an unnamed road (Flat-Top Mountain Road) on your RIGHT. Park well off the road, as there are many logging trucks using the Copper Mountain Road. Trail: There are some km markers (2, 3 and 5). Otherwise, the distances are estimates. The trail passes through primarily second-growth forest with some clear-cuts. Because of recent logging, there are some new side roads. The main road should be easy to follow. 0 km and .25 km --- cattle guards; between these two cattle guards, the road goes through private land; please stay on the road. 1.2 km --- junction (in 2000, there was a large slash pile on your right); stay RIGHT on the main road for Flat-top; the road to the LEFT can be followed, keeping left, to the top of a hill where there is an old homestead-- about 3 km, one way. About 2.2 km---junction; stay LEFT for Flat-top; the RIGHT fork goes down to Allenby Road. 3 km - trail starts to climb about 5.5 km---the trail flattens out as it enters an open area with a young (3 to 4 metres high) third-growth lodgepole pine forest; take next LEFT that goes up and soon re-enters a second-growth forest. About 6.5 km---watch for the forest to open up on your left; head up a short side trail to the summit of Flat-top. Enjoy the views of the Red Bluffs to the east; the Tulameen Valley to the northwest; open rangeland to the north; and the mine to the south. Notice the lovely common junipers if the snow hasn't buried them! Lunch time? Return to the main trail, turning LEFT to complete the circuit. The trail goes down, sometimes steeply, through forests of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine and, in the more open areas, some handsome specimens of ponderosa pine with its distinctive red bark. Where the trail levels out, there is a junction. Stay LEFT. After the junction, the trail climbs gradually, giving you some more views as you go along the sidehill. About 10.5 km---the trail comes out into the open again as it re-enters the third-growth lodgepole pine forest; very soon, you come to a junction; stay RIGHT; passing a slough/marsh on your LEFT. For the next 1.5 km, the trail descends gradually, joining the main trail above the 5 km marker. Turn RIGHT and have a great ski down! |