Summer Camping

 

We didn't get out camping till Barkerville in the beginning of August, but we made up for it the next to weeks trips to Horsefly Lake and Big Bar Lake. 

Unfortunately  I lost my camera at Horsefly Lake (it may have fallen into the outhouse!)  so there's not many photos available. (Check out our almost identical camping trip last year for similar pictures.)

According to Leo's camera the most important events were:  Lots of fun bocce games,

A giant hornets nest in the woods next to our site,

A chipmunk hopping around in the thimbleberry bushes picking berries.

We walked up the short trail to the viewpoint several times a day so Leo could train for his backpacking trip later in the month.

Connie, Rick and the 30 lb pack at the viewpoint.

After every hike we went for a swim.  On the second day it started getting smoky so we headed home the next morning hoping things were better at home. Nope.  Then the fires in the Shuswap and the Okanagan started to blow up.  The Central Cariboo, however remained a oasis of calm in the midst of fires all through the province.  We've been lucky to have a gullywasher of a thundershower almost every week.

The following week we headed down to Big Bar Lake again for a few days (Sunday to Wednesday to avoid the weekend crowds.)  This time we pumped our boat up as soon as we got there to be sure to get out on the lake.

It worked!  We got 2 paddles in.

Every day we hiked the very lovely 1-1/2 hour Otter marsh trail.  Leo had to get his backpacking practice in.

Leo, Mark and Henry rest and take in the view.

Same bench, another colder day.

It was too smoky to do a major hike in the Marble Mountains so we decided to drive up to the Jesmond Forestry lookout.  We were hoping we would be above the smoke but no luck.

Xx

The lookout was very well maintained.

Nothing to see here.

Coincidentally, there was a BC 4-wheeling association calendar propped up and open to August 2022, featuring a photo by our nephew Chris.

Yup, pretty smoky.

The views from our campsite we not great either!

The next day we hiked around the marsh again.

The loneliness of the long distance hiker

We love walking along the giant esker above the lake.

The chipmunks in our campsite were very bold.   One of them ran right up to Henry the dog and sniffed his paw.  He just watched it.

We drove over to Little Big Bar Lake to check out the rec site and play a little x-country bocce.

There are lots of sopallallie bushes growing along the lake; we saw not one single berry.  A bad year for bears and Indian icecream afficionados.  One the other hand, the junipers were loaded with berries.

A good year for Townsend's solitaires and gin distilleries!