At the base of the Keremeos bench, Argo Road Maintenance crews have been busy crushing and stockpiling road sand for the upcoming winter season.
The Yellow Lake area has been particularly bad for icing conditions early this season, as has a stretch of Highway 3 between Hedley and Princeton.
A mixed, highly localized bag of weather hit the Similkameen Friday morning, November 29, causing multiple traffic accidents and closing Highway 3 between Hedley and Princeton for most of the morning.
At least seven vehicles were reported to be in the ditch between Keremeos and Hedley, and an accident involving two tractor trailers resulted in the shutdown of the highway, just west of Hedley. Traffic could not be re-routed along Old Hedley Road, resulting in some lengthy delays for many motorists.
No life threatening injuries were reported in any of the incidents in the Similkameen.
In the Okanagan, Cpl. Ted Manchulenko of the Penticton RCMP said a driver also lost control of his vehicle just south of Okanagan Falls around 9:31 a.m. on Friday because of the icy roadway.
“He ended up going off road to the right hand side and pretty much writes off his vehicle at that point. He was hospitalized but didn’t have life-threatening injuries,” said Manchulenko.