Kelowna Parks Challenge – Trip #13
This week I went on an adventure discovering the parks of Kelowna’s Old Glenmore neighbourhood. The adventure was part of my Kelowna Parks Challenge. I saw six parks, all new to me, including Redlich Pond, which was a wonderful discovery.
Read on for my impressions and reflections!
The Trip
This adventure took me around and through the older part of Glenmore. This neighbourhood is to the south of the main part of Glenmore Valley, where we walked last week, and has been a residential area for longer. The streets and houses reminded me a lot of those in Bankhead, and I would not be surprised to discover that the subdivisions had been done in the 1960s.
The land I explored was somewhat hilly. After travelling along the relatively flat valley bottom to the north, Brandt’s Creek descends through this area down to the main Kelowna plain, where it turns west just north of the hills of Bankhead and heads for Okanagan Lake. I saw the creek at several points along my journey, but there is no urban trail along it here. Instead, it often can be spotted running through front yards.
Hartwick Park
I started my adventure in Hartwick Park, at the corner of Clifton Road and Mountain Avenue. This is a good-sized neighbourhood park with a playground and tennis court. It is bordered by a street on three sides, which gives it a nice open feeling.
I enjoyed standing under the majestic oak trees in this park, though I am not a fan of the considerable noise coming from busy Clifton Road.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Because it is primarily a playground, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Sonora Park
This surprisingly large neighbourhood park was the highest point on this week’s trip, altitude-wise. From this park’s wide lawn, I looked around and saw mountains in all directions. To the west, Knox Mountain; to the north, the Glenmore Highlands; to the east, Dilworth Mountain; and to the south, Okanagan Mountain, far across the plain.
Other than views, this park also has a playground on the east side. The rest of the park is surrounded by a wide berm, with a swale behind it. I assume this feature has a function, perhaps related to water or snow management. Otherwise, it is kind of an odd design feature, though it makes a nice place to plant trees.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Because it is primarily a playground, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Golfview Park
This park, at the corner of Summit Drive and Valley Road, appears to have been partitioned off of the northern end of the Kelowna Golf and Country Club. It is a wedge-shaped park, with a playground toward the south end.
In the future, the city would like this park to be part of a southern extension of the Brandt’s Creek Linear Park, which we explored last week. Technically the creek runs underneath this park and the adjacent golf course, before emerging farther south on the other side of Spall Road.
While standing in this park, enjoying the excellent view of Dilworth Mountain, it was not difficult for me to imagine what a nice green-space it will be if it is ever surrounded by low-rise apartment buildings. That is not likely to happen soon, however, despite the comprehensive development zones to the north. The land to the east is still zoned for single-family urban residential (ie. suburbs of detached houses) while the land to the northeast is agricultural and still part of the Agricultural Land Reserve.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Because it is primarily a playground, dogs are not allowed in this park.
Calmels Park
Crossing Spall Road and heading south, I came to this charming neighbourhood park. While its charm is perhaps unevenly distributed over its area, there is something to be said for each of its sides.
The highlight for me is the entrance from Calmels Crescent. At the narrow point, two large ponderosa pines stand sentry at the beginning of a winding sidewalk that leads you down a small hill, past a playground and across the entire park. Also worthy of note is the alley at the north end, where the park grass has crept over the gravel roadway, making an adorable green carpet.
I assume this park was built in the sixties, when the neighbourhood was (probably) subdivided, but it looks like it has been added to and improved over the years. One of its nicest features is that there is a multi-family development between the park and Spall Drive, so the traffic noise was minimized.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park, but only on-leash.
Redlich Pond Park
Biased as I am towards a good nature bath, this park was the highlight of my adventure this week. Given the ponds I found in Mission Creek Park and at the Jean Road Trails, they are clearly a common feature of the hills around Kelowna. Here the surrounding residential lots come very close to the pond’s edge, and there is barely enough room on three sides for a path. Nevertheless, it is a natural-enough space that I got a good whiff of wilderness while exploring there.
City-made signs in the park told me it is valuable painted turtle habitat, and also that it is a stormwater retention area. A homemade sign posted on a lampstand near the park told me it has only recently been integrated with the storm sewers and that the pond’s water quality and ecosystem health have worsened as a result. The sign correctly identified the action needed to help the pond. Residents of the surrounding areas need to stop using pesticides and other toxic chemicals that can wash into the storm drains and into the pond.
I was surprised to find that the trails on the north and south sides of the pond do not connect on the west side, and do no make a loop, but I would still find excuses to use them to get around this neighbourhood if I walked here more often.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is no washroom in this park.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park, but only on-leash.
Jack Robertson Memorial Park
This is a good-looking mid-sized park that is an asset to its neighbourhood. In addition to the playground and softball diamond, this park’s best feature is its rolling hills. Except for the softball field on the south side, there is no wide, flat, grassy area here.
Perhaps because of the hills, or perhaps because of the winding path that leads you from the north side to the south, this park feels more like a linear park than a destination park, to me. Despite its size and features, I felt like it was more of a charming way to get from one part of the neighbourhood to another, than a place to be. All of which made me wonder at the design process that chose to strip the hills in this park and cover them with a monoculture of lawn grass. It is pretty, though, and a great opportunity to admire mid-twentieth century park design.
I also want to say that, just as in Mary-Ann Collinson Memorial Park, there was no information here about who Jack Robertson was. A brief internet search also told me nothing. Kelowna is not so big that many people in the rest of the world are talking about its notable former residents. Perhaps longtime residents all know who these people were, but the reasons for their memorialization remain a mystery to me.
Washrooms and Drinking Fountains: There is no drinking fountain in this park. There is a washroom in this park. It is open weekends and late afternoons in the summer, but is closed in the winter.
Dog Rules: Dogs are allowed in this park, but only on-leash.
Reflections
Seasonal Change
For the last few weeks, revelling in fall colour has been a highlight of my adventures. From Mission Creek to Brandt’s Creek, valley lowlands are a great place to find deciduous trees and this year has been great for colour.
Well, now we are into November and the colours are definitely fading. I don’t know if you can tell in my photos, but the vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows of the past few weeks are turning into an equally varied, but decidedly less vibrant, range of browns.
This has its own charm, of course. When I lived in Vancouver, where snow seldom falls and even more seldom sticks around, it took me a few years, but I came to appreciate the palette of browns and beiges as a variety of winter beauty just as wonderful as that of the more easily appreciated greens of the conifers.
Conclusions
Six suburban parks with a hidden nature bath made for a great trip this week. I particularly enjoyed the views I got of Dilworth Mountain during the first half of the route.
Thinking about the coming snows of winter helped me realize that I might not be able to explore mountain parks as easily in that season. Since it won’t likely be feasible to leave them all until the late spring, I had better get around to putting on my hiking shoes. Next week, look forward to a climb into the hills.
With the addition of this week’s parks, I have now seen sixty-six of the 203 parks on the Official List in 103 days. In other words, I have completed 32% of the challenge in 28% of the year. It feels good to be ahead of the pace and I feel confident I will succeed, but winter is coming…
