Joanne Layh

Aberdeen Publishing

Kaslo-based eco-friendly bus company Mountain Man Mike’s has received approval from the Passenger Transportation Board to operate an intercity scheduled bus from Kelowna to Osoyoos.

On June 11 Mountain Man Mike’s announced its fleet of buses, which reportedly run on recycled restaurant frying oil, would begin servicing the Highway 97 corridor from Kelowna to Osoyoos sometime this summer.

Unlike BC Transit’s Route 70 service, which links Kelowna and Penticton but skips over Peachland, the privately operated bus service will make a stop in Peachland at the Petro-Canada station, conveniently located in the same parking lot as BC Transit’s IGA stop.

“We’re very small community based,” said owner Mike Hathaway. “If you look at our stop list, we go to something like 38 different communities. If there’s a community of any size and we’re passing through, we put a stop there. That’s just what we do.”

Hathaway says the service will give the South Okanagan access to Vancouver and Calgary and onto Lethbridge.

“We’re taking it one step at a time. We originally started with just the Vancouver run and then Alberta was an extension and this is another extension,” Hathaway said, adding he’s encouraged by a flood of passenger requests in the last month or so.

The Highway 97 run will connect to their two pre-existing bus systems offering service to and from Vancouver, Osoyoos, Kelowna, Nelson, Cranbrook, Lethbridge, Calgary and 38 small towns in between. The schedule has yet to be released, but booking for the route between Osoyoos to Kelowna will be available July 31, with the new bus service along Highway 97 expected to begin sometime in August.

The service between Kelowna and Osoyoos will operate Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. On Wednesdays and Saturdays the bus will travel from Kelowna to the Osoyoos Husky station with a transfer option to connect with another bus continuing on to Vancouver via Princeton. On Thursdays and Sundays there will be an option to connect with the eastbound route.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bus company temporarily paused its service to Calgary, but service is scheduled to relaunch on July 2.

For more information visit mountainmanmikes.ca.