Cranbrook - Creston 2026

 Cranbrook- Creston 2026

Creston Wildlife Preserve

June 16, 2026

It looked like it was going to be a warm day today so we had not planned a really big ride.   We thought that it would be a good idea to ride across the valley and tour the Wildlife Preserve.  The out and back to the Wildlife Preserve was on  28 kms so we added a few by riding a road which heads south along the Kootenay river.  This is a really nice ride as it is deal flat across the flood plain of the river and because it dead ends with only a few farms along the way there is almost no traffic.  Although it is getting pretty rutted and the pavement is badly in need of repair;

On the way back we stopped at the wildlife preserve and took a walking tour.  The spring migration is long past and the fall migration is not for several months as a result there were no big flocks to see.  The big observation tower has been repaired from when we were here in June of 2025 so we had to climb it. The view of the wetlands from 3 stories up was magnificent.  I can only imagine the view from the tower when thousands of birds are coming in on a migration.  We did see a couple of logs in one of the ponds which had a lot of painted blue turtles on it, several red wing black birds and several eagles riding the thermals. 

Coming back across the valley we had a very nice tail wind.  They are working on the Kootenay Pass so all the cars were bunched up on the highway.  This made the trip across the bridge easy as we just waited until the cars had left and the we cruised across the big bridge.  

The short ride turned out to be just over 45 kms so it was very nice.  

We are off to tour the Kokanee brewery this afternoon.  I will try and make a special post with pictures on that but we will see how it goes with the post tour sampling.  

Terry