Even now, 41 years after it happened, I can still clearly remember our adventure into that remote part of British Columbia. Back in the day, I must have had too much time on my hands – I used to sit there with my maps and daydream about all kinds of wild and crazy things I could go and do in the mountains. Not that I don’t still dream about doing such things – I do. However, the main difference between then and now is that back then, being bold, young and reckless, I was actually capable of pulling off most of those stunts, whereas now, my reach often exceeds my grasp.
Eighty-five miles east of Vancouver sits the town of Harrison Hot Springs, which in turn sits at the southern end of Harrison Lake. Even that far inland, the lake is only 33 feet above sea level. For me back in the 1970s, it was a gateway to many climbing adventures. I could either drive up the logging roads on the west or east sides of the lake, or, and this always made it feel more exciting, I could pay a small fee and take the water taxi north up the lake and get dropped off. This boat delivered men and supplies to the docks of the logging camps that dotted the shore, but it would also drop you anywhere else it could safely get close enough for you to hop off.
Mike Ryan and I both lived in a small town called Mission, and we climbed fairly often together. I told him of my cockamamie idea of a grand trip into the wilderness, covering many miles with much uncertainty, and was he interested? – he immediately said yes. Since we were both self-employed, it was easy to arrange a suitable chunk of time for our adventure.
The big day came – June 4, 1976 – his wife drove us the 40 miles to the Riv-Tow dock at Harrison Hot Springs and dropped us off. We boarded the boat with our backpacks and settled in for the ride. Heading up the lake was always an adventure. 37 miles long and only about 2 miles wide in its upper reaches, peaks rise up steeply from its shore, in places almost 8,000 vertical feet. The spectacular scenery never lets up the entire way. We stopped at several camps, but finally, 5 hours after setting out, the captain pulled up to the old dock at Spring Creek. We disembarked, telling him we wouldn’t be back, to not bother looking for us on any of his runs during the next week. He wished us well. As the boat pulled away, we soon lost the sight and sound of it. The silence was immense as we stood there on the dock – just us, our packs and excited thoughts. It was 12:30 PM.
The plan was to walk up Sloquet Creek. It had all been logged many years earlier, and the Forest Service told us we could expect to find the old roads to be seriously overgrown. Things grow quickly in coastal rain forest – vegetation can re-claim an unused road in a few short years. Because we already knew that, we felt we were ready for anything.
Setting out, we headed northwest along the lake on a good dirt road for 4 miles. In the 70s, there was no human habitation at the upper end of the lake. The road then took a sharp turn to the west on the north side of the valley that contains Sloquet Creek. Following the road here was pretty straightforward, not too overgrown, and we covered another 4 miles. Our topographic map alerted us to something we really wanted to find, shown on the map as a hot spring (nowadays, it is known as Sloquet Hot Springs). It was somewhere between the road and the creek itself, and when we reached the area where we thought it should be, we dropped our packs and started searching. It took a while, as things were pretty overgrown, but find it we did – the 1:50,000-scale topo map wasn’t much of a help. In the 70s, the hot spring was little-known, so we were quite proud of ourselves for having found it, a true wilderness gem.
A small waterfall issues from the steep rocky bank of Sloquet Creek itself, and it is scalding hot. As I recall, it then flowed into 2 small man-made pools, which were way too hot for your body. The spring water then flows a ways and into another pool, bigger, also man-made. The water in that pool was very warm but perfect for a good soak. Wow, what a sight for sore eyes! Someone had built a rock wall to impound the water, and it was deep enough in which to recline. We were soaked in sweat from the day’s efforts, and in moments had stripped to the buff and slid into the pool. The water was delicious, and as we sat there submerged to our necks, we felt the day’s aches melt away. Only a few feet away, the creek roared past, its rolling white waters making quite a din. We were in bliss – even the mosquitoes couldn’t ruin our day at this point. A soak of an hour made everything as right as rain, and we so liked the area that we camped there for the night. The day had been hot and cloudy, but blue skies arrived later on.
The next day, Saturday, was a very different experience. We were sad to leave the hot spring, but it was of course necessary. Once back on the old road, we walked for 3 hours – the going was difficult at times, forcing our way through brush and having a hard time even following the road. At noon, we became discouraged because we had lost the road completely – maybe it had crossed over to the other side. It seemed worthwhile to take a look, so we forded the creek – it was deep enough to give us pause. Once on the other side, we spent a full 6 hours moving upstream, but the bushwhacking was terrible.
At one point, we were walking along through a thicket of young saplings, with poor visibility. Nearby, we saw a black bear – unlike most, it didn’t run off, instead lurking around for a while. In BC, we were used to seeing bears, but this one didn’t fit the usual model, seeming bolder. It worried us some, so we crossed Sloquet again, and voilà!, there was the old road, or what was left of it. Even so, we decided to move back out to the middle of the Sloquet and camp on a gravel bar for the night.
Early the next morning, we were moving once again. Sloquet Creek was smaller as we neared its headwaters – we forded it once more, then something called Ironstone Creek. We were just west of a prominent peak called Mt. Lamont, and only a mile from Kinnear Lake which drained into Sloquet. As we continued west, climbing steadily, we approached a pass at 2,900 feet elevation – it was noon when we arrived. This was an exciting moment, one we’d spent days working towards. We were done with Sloquet Creek, and now could see down into the next drainage. This would be the start of the next big part of the trip.
Three hours later, we had walked down old spur roads to the main logging road by the Stave River, and lost 1,300 feet in the process. This was a major road used by the big logging company whose camp sat at the mouth of the river, and it was easy to travel. Days are long in those parts in June, and we managed another 10 miles before calling it quits – about time, too, our dogs were really barking. We camped in the shadow of Mt. Judge Howay, an impressive peak which towered 7,000 vertical feet above us. The bugs were horrific.
An aside – the Judge had a hold on me. In 1976, I knew 2 guys who had climbed it. The east side was a steep, Class 4 route, but the trick wasn’t so much the climbing; rather, it was the start. You had to ford the Stave River, chest deep here, in order to get over to the start of the climb. I gazed at it longingly, but didn’t have the nerve. Still, being so close, it ate away at me. I actually did return on my own a year later, intent on fording the river and doing the climb. Standing on the bank, I tried to get a feeling for how hard it would be to get across. There were big rollers, and white water, and it scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t get past the thought of me out there in that chest-deep water, pack over my head, getting swept away to my death. I chickened out and never went back.
Next morning, we set out again, heading south along the road. As we came around a corner, we confronted another black bear. This one acted like most of them did – terrified, it ran up a steep dirt bank, pissing itself as it went and disappeared into the thick brush.
It took us another 3 1/2 hours of brisk walking to reach the camp. You should have seen the looks on their faces when we came walking in, like they’d seen a ghost. Here’s the thing – the only way you could get to their camp was by boat or plane from the south. None of them, not in a million years, would expect anyone to come walking in from the north – where in the hell would they ever have come from? – it was all remote wilderness up there. Right away, we noticed a somber mood in camp. Someone told us of a tragic accident that had just occurred. A young mechanic had been working on a tire on a piece of heavy equipment – it was a split rim, and had exploded, killing him instantly. His body had been flown out by helicopter not long before we’d arrived. In spite of that, they were friendly to us, and offered to feed us in their mess hall – we enjoyed a piece of freshly-baked pie.
Our journey of adventure was over, or so we thought. Boats regularly plied the waters of Stave Lake, making the 18-mile run between the village of Stave Falls at the southern end of the lake and the camp at the northern end, where we now found ourselves. There was no way to drive out, so all traffic was via boat or plane. Our plan had been to catch a ride out on one of the boats. It turned out that a barge had left earlier that day, so we were stranded, for a while at least. Luckily for us, though, the Forest Service had a boat at the dock, and their man told us we could catch a ride with him down the lake the next day, and that suited us just fine. The rest of the day was spent on the boat dock, swatting flies and waiting for night to fall. It was kind of an anticlimax to such a grand adventure. The forestry guy did let us sleep on the boat that night, though, and that helped. The next morning, away we went and were back home by mid-day.
The trip had been a success. It lasted 5 days, we had traveled 55 miles by boat, 50 miles on paved roads and close to 50 miles on foot. We didn’t know of anyone else who had done what we did, so we felt pretty good about our little adventure. Somehow, word of our trip got out, because a year or two later, I received a phone call from a man I’d never met. He said he was the son of the man for whom either Mt. Lamont or Kinnear Lake had been named – so many years later, I can’t remember which. He himself was elderly, and wanted to go in and visit the area to honor his father’s memory. He must have been a man of means, as he was willing to pay for a helicopter to take him and me to it. He just wanted to stand atop the mountain and see the area for himself. I guess he felt I was the resident expert on the peak, as I had recently been close to it. I had to turn him down, as I was about to leave on a climbing trip. Never did hear from him again – I hope he made it.