Photo: Facebook

Walk The Beach is back this weekend in Kelowna.

Participants will walk from City Park to Rotary Beach on Sunday to raise awareness about obstructions and access to the public foreshore on Okanagan Lake. 

The five-kilometre walk departs at 1 p.m. and is expected to take two to three hours. More than 100 people are expected to take part.

Walkers will follow the shoreline, but will have to make several bypasses back to the street because of private infrastructure or landscaping that blocks the beach. 

The "foreshore" is the area of the beach between the low and high water marks. It and the lake are considered public property. 

Organizers hope to get the province or municipality to install signs along the high water mark to denote the boundary between public and private property so people walking beaches don't accidentally trespass onto private land.

Private docks are also not allowed to restrict public access to the foreshore.  

Very few of the higher docks between the Bennett Bridge and Mission Creek have the required steps to allow people to pass without trespassing. Without them, the docks become major barriers, walk organizers say. And, in a number of locations, obstructions include walls and fences.  

The group's priorities this year include:

• Construction of a planned public park linking Strathcona Beach Park and Royal Avenue Beach Access.
• Repair and improvement of the public walkway north of Maude Roxby Wetland.
• Construction, in a basic form, of the long-delayed park near Cedar Avenue.
• Have the City of Kelowna resume purchasing properties that are adjacent to existing lakefront parks when they become available. 
• Have the city install signs indicating the high water mark.
• Completion of the Abbott Street Recreation Corridor multi-use path south of the hospital.