Big Bar Lake
In the late 1990’s my friends and I were in our late teens and were discovering the outdoors for the first time on our own. We all came from good middle class households where we were exposed to a variety of camping trips, vacations and other journeys with our parents, but we were now approaching the age where we wanted to set out on our own adventures. We were young, inexperienced, and under-prepared, but it didn’t matter. We were full of energy and optimism so nothing was going to keep us from our first big camping adventure at Big Bar Lake up by Cache Creek in beautiful B.C.
Back then, the Internet was definitely not what it was now. If you wanted to go camping in B.C. you couldn’t just jump on the web and do your research, you couldn’t get online driving directions, and there were no virtual tours or photos of the Provincial Park you wanted to visit. We have it good now and things are much easier, but back then the research was part of our adventure. In those days if you wanted to visit a Provincial Park in B.C. you needed a couple things. First, we needed this booklet (I don’t remember exactly what it was called, but it was something like the B.C. Parks Guide) and it had all of the info and location of every Provincial Park in B.C. My friends and I would get that guidebook every year as it was the bible when it came to planning our trips. Next, we needed a map (there was no GPS in cars back then). Finally, we needed some money for supplies, money for gas, and of course money for beer, but none of us really had any money, so this was a bit of a challenge!
The plan came together pretty quickly one evening as we sat at my friend’s parent’s house and planned it out. We wanted to go somewhere we had never been before, we wanted to go somewhere far away (but not too far), and we wanted to go to a lake. After spending countless hours reading through the guidebook we decided on Big Bar Lake. It had great camping, hiking, fishing, and it was located in a part of the province that none of us had explored before. So, after saving a little money, wrestling a little more from our parents, buying our supplies, packing our car, and swinging by our favorite 19 year old friend’s house for our beer, we were off on our adventure. Now, let me tell you that back then a 1985 Honda Accord was considered a great car, but when you cram 3 sweaty teenagers, all their stuff, and venture off on a long journey then you wouldn’t think it is the best vehicle in the world. Well it had to do because it was all we had. During our journey we got to see new landscapes, forests, and rivers that we had never come across before. I always loved the adventure because you never knew what would be around the next bend, which kept me wanting to always go further, and see more.
Finally after what seemed to be an eternity we arrived in Cache Creek where we decided to load up on some gas and supplies before making our way down the logging road out to Big Bar Lake. We met some interesting characters in that town especially the one old man sitting out front of the liquor store. He was an old, wrinkled, very short man, in a jean tuxedo and ball cap. The stuff that came out of his mouth was incomprehensible, but he sure wanted to talk. We gave him a beer, made his year, and continued on our journey.
About halfway down the logging road my friend noticed a smell of gas coming from his car. We pulled off to the side and we all got out to see what was up. I guess that 1985 Honda Accords are not designed for the bumps of a logging road. With all the tough terrain that we were going over his gas line had rattled off. We were now leaking gas and we were miles away from any gas station. Of course we had no tools either because we were a bunch of punk teenage kids who where more concerned with getting there then getting prepared. We turned around and went back to Cache Creek where we found a service station that was able to fix our car in a jiffy. So, finally, back underway. We made it down the logging road this time without any problems and rolled into the Provincial Park campsite. On arrival we realized that this was not a super tent friendly campground. It was super exposed and the sites were right on the side of the lake. Everyone had nice big trucks, campers, boats, state of the art fishing gear and all the warm clothes you could imagine. No worries, I had two of the best friends money could buy, twenty-four hotdogs and a bunch of beer. We were set!
Setting up camp seemed to be a bit of a challenge. Being young punk kids, we failed the first test of camping. We got there, went exploring, drank, and where now in no shape to setup camp in the dark. We sat on top of our tents/tarps and looked out over the lake. The gentlemen in the camp next to us came over to lend us a hand. With a bit of direction and some more sober minds we were able to get things setup. As we sat back, in our lakefront campsite, with the fire burning and that smell of sweet campfire filling our noses we roasted wieners over the fire and looked out over the big open sky. We thought he had found a little piece of heaven.
The night went by quick (probably because we got wasted), but after a few hours with three guys in a two man tent we decided to get up. We fixed some breakfast, relaxed and got ready. We decided to go on a hike and explore the big open rolling yellow hills of the park. We wanted to climb to the top, see the views, maybe spot some wildlife and just take everything in for the first time. As we ventured out we began to hike along the top on this one rolling hill when out of nowhere our one friend said to us “that he wanted to go up and explore the upper ridge” and just kind of took off. My other friend and I decided to maintain our current course as it was a beautiful ledge along the lake and it was taking us towards an open plain that we wanted to explore. After about 45 minutes we realized that we were on the lower hill and our friend was off in the distance on the upper ridge. We could see him as clearly as day. As we came over the next bend we spotted a black bear off in the distance. We sat back and watched it make its way though the meadows. Soon after we noticed that the bear was not alone. It had two bear cubs with it. We decided to take a seat, keep our distance and just observe. It was amazing. Looking one way we had this big open sky above us and a beautiful lake filled with fly fisherman and the other way we looked we saw this great meadow with 3 bears doing their thing. All of a sudden a quick movement caught our attention. We noticed our other friend off in the distance sprinting across the upper ridge back towards the campsite. Thinking the worse, we thought he was being chased by another bear or worse maybe a cougar! We could see him, he looked panicked, he was sure moving, but he couldn’t hear us.
We decided to make our way over to him to see what was wrong. We hiked straight upwards over the rolling hill to the upper ledge that he was on. We searched around for him, but there was no sign of him. So, we decided to begin to make our way back to camp. As we were walking along, we noticed the biggest, grossest, pile of crap you had ever seen in your day. Just past it looked like some cloth or something. Thinking to ourselves “what kind of animal would lay a crap like this one right along a hiking trail?” It boggled my mind, but I soon forgot about it. As we made our way back to camp we spotted our friend sitting back in his lawn chair, enjoying the view, with a beverage! He had a huge grin on his face and looked oh so pleased with himself. We said to him, “hey man, we saw you up on the hill. Were you being chased by a bear or something? You looked panicked and you were running so fast!” He looked over to us, smiled, stared away for a second, looked back, paused, and said, “ya, there was no bear.” We were like, “No, there were three bears! Didn’t you see them? Isn’t that why you were running?” He chuckled a bit, held back and then said, “No, I really had to take a crap!” Right then and there, I knew that dirty pile of steamy dung that we had come across right on the middle of a beautiful trail, in the middle of a spectacular park, up in Caribou country, was the result of our friend eating too many hotdogs, ingesting too many beers, and having one too many cans of stag chilly the night before! I turned away, laughed, and thought to myself, “this trip can be summed up in one word…amazing!”
-Adventurer Derek