Sloppy weather stops crews from cleaning up rock slide in Knox Mountain Park

KELOWNA – A popular hiking trail shut down by a rock slide in Kelowna’s Knox Mountain Park will remain off limits until further notice.

Urban parks supervisor Blair Stewart says Paul’s Tomb trail is still closed based on the advice of a local geotechical expert.

“We meet with the contractor out on site and we’re waiting to find out what’s necessary to clean it up. We also need to wait for better weather,” Stewart explains.

The unseasonably warm weather likely played a role in the rock fall and is now preventing its clean up and Stewart would not predict when the trail would reopen.

“With any water or melting or freezing at night is a concern. We’re waiting for the ground to firm up. It has to dry up or freeze up before we can get an excavator in there,” Stewart says. “Even if it freezes, it has to freeze the right way.”

Tuesday’s rock fall took place just past where the Ogopogo trail intersects with Paul’s Tomb trail. Stewart described it as a boulder that likely fell off the side of Knox Mountain hundreds of years ago and only just shifted a few metres from where it used to lay, bringing some smaller rocks and debris with it.

Signs have been posted since then warning people not to use the trail, although Stewart says people are still walking around the massive boulder that covers half the trail.

“We had a couple run by us this morning. We told them it was closed and they argued with us. All we can do is put up the signs and warn them against it,” Stewart says.

Stewart says the geotech has pointed out some other areas of concern along the trail, so plans are to work on some of them while the excavator is in the area.

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To contact the reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.