Bear’s, or Bear Frasch’s Farm Market, holds a special place in my memory. This market north of Keremeos is where I would stop as a kid traveling with family to stock up on peaches and cherries. Photos by the author.

With many rides I have a sense of where I?m going but the details come out later. For this one I had a specific goal: I wanted to explore the roads my parents took me along as a kid in a Ford LTD, towing a tent trailer behind. We would always stop at fruit stands in the Okanagan region of British Columbia and pick up peaches, cherries, berries…whatever was in season. We?d nibble the fruit along the way or wait to eat it at a campsite. I wanted to visit these food-growing parts of my home province again and renew my connection with the roads and farms where the food I eat in Vancouver comes from.
Looking for a riding buddy, I gingerly pushed my BMW F 650 GS down a gear into third before taking the exit off Highway 3 into the parking area of Manning Park Resort, which sits among the colossal Cascade Mountains. My friend David Powell had been exploring the roads of the Similkameen Valley, just east of E.C. Manning Provincial Park, on his Honda CB500X for a week, and I was keen to join him and find out what he?d learned. After a quick bite to eat, we were back on the road.

Map of the route taken, by Bill Tipton/compartmaps.com.

Before we made our way to Princeton, where we?d sleep that night, David was already suggesting a ride off the ...