Interior Winter Driving
 

Anyone on RS who travels from Kamloops/Kelowna or further share some insight on the drives on HWY1/Coquihalla/Hope Princeton?

Used to go up to kamloops/merrit area quite often in the winter usually a truck leaving during the day so it was generally pretty good. However I’m interested in things like the Kelowna Connector and if you’re better off taking the hope Princeton through Keromeos to Penticton VS Coquihalla and the connector

Paging roverT, becuzracecars, underscore

Just take the coq. Good snow tires you have nothing to worry about. I much prefer to drive it at night, mostly just truckers, no soccer moms with 3 screaming kids or c lai's who's snow driving experience consists of a 9 minute youtube video.

Hope Princeton is such a nicer drive but I’ve never taken it in the winter besides going to big white on a high school trip lol

I drive up there every year. Winter tires or deep tread A/S will be good most of the time. Occasionally you get caught in white out conditions but I don't find it too scary.

Obviously though, winter tires would be better than a/s. If it gets REALLY bad they typically would have shut the highway.

Only warning I have is the 97 between Merritt and kelowna, it gets heavy fog damn near daily during the winter. Try to drive during the day if you can. At night you can turn a corner in the snow and drop to ~3 car lengths visibility on a fast hwy. can be sketchy.

100% bring snow tires, I would be uncomfortable in any kind of A/S. passing in the fast lane can be sketchy AF sometimes as the transition can be rough and easy to hydroplane.

For the winter I think I’d still prefer the cow up to 97 over the crows nest. Wide roads, fairly simple

I've done these drives at least a dozen or more times - mostly to Kelowna, once to Kamloops, twice to Calgary.

I would advise 100% to get dedicated winter tires. I drove to Kelowna once almost 10 years ago on brand new all-seasons not knowing any better and I was fine but would not do that again. The added confidence and grip when you need it is priceless.

If you do have winter tires however, you'll be perfectly fine on the Coq.

I had to take Princeton and HWY3 once to get to Kelowna due to two jackknifed semis on the Coq in the snow. Very pretty drive in the winter but still decently plowed and safe.
Just remember if it's in the low single digits or lower around the Great Bearshed, be very careful coming out on the other side - the bearshed can be dry inside but as soon as you come out and hit the outside pavement, it can be a very slippery transition. I've seen people nearly spin out there coming out of the bearshed - I don't apply gas or make sure I turn cruise off coming out of the bearshed.
Be careful around the long sweeping curves as well, you occasionally see abandoned cars in the embankments from spin outs or flips.


Apart from that, the road is well maintained in my opinion but expect sudden weather changes. Ive driven into Kelowna at 10AM looking like a summers day and driving back down at 4pm in a blizzard.

Drive safe.

The usual stuff applies with mountain passes, take it easy and only do it with good snow tires. A lot of the time it's fine with meh tires but the weather up there changes fast and what was fine for your drive out might not be good enough for the drive home. I've driven down on mostly clear pavement and driven back the next day doing about 40km/h on compact snow and ice, passing flipped and stuck vehicles all over the place. The only time I took the Hope Princeton during the "winter" was because it was right at the start of the season and I had crap tires so I was trying to avoid the summits. I went all the way down to Penticton and it was 3hrs longer to Kelowna. I wouldn't take it in the winter if it could be avoided, there's a lot more places from Hope to Princeton where if you go off the road it's gonna be sketchy. If you go north from Princeton to the connector it's a little less sketchy (aside from the lakes) but there's next to no traffic so if you need help it might be a while. That may be the influence of all the horror stories I heard from my grandfather who was a trucker and drove it a lot though. I would think the Coq/Connector is a higher priority for plows and stuff too.

As 320icar said fog can come out of nowhere on the Connector, and clear up just as fast. Going full speed and suddenly not being able to see the road or the shoulders has a pretty high pucker factor when there's not enough snow for the big banks yet. When the snow banks are built up it's great to drive at night in a car because you're low enough that oncoming lights can't hit you and you can leave your highbeams on all the time. The Pennask Summit (1,728m) is also much higher than the Coquihalla Summit (1,244m) but everyone seems to forget about it and get caught out up there, so check the highway cams for both before you go.

tl;dr - take the Coq/Connector and don't drive like an idiot and you'll be fine. Bring snacks, warm weather gear, etc in case the road gets shut down for any reason and you're stuck.

Yea even many times during the summer I’ve been caught in rain storms or fog where I’ve almost had to pull over on the connector

Same here. I used to drive a lot back and forth from Vancouver to Kelowna when I was studying at UBCO.

First it will be sunny, then all of a sudden it would be snowing heavily with strong winds. I've always taken Hwy 5 then 97C , much better than taking Hwy 3 unless theres some huge accident that closed off the hwy.

Safe drive!