Stein Valley Nlaka’ pamux heritage park

On the May long weekend Berm and I decided to do an overnight camping trip in the lower Stein Valley in Lytton.
The name comes from ‘Stagyn’ a Nlaka’ pamux word which means ‘Hidden place’. (1)
And I can understand why they call it like that. You can only get there with a small ferry or via two very unmaintained roads.

Berm has a lot of family history in the Stein Valley because he grew up in the neighbourhood of the Stein.
His father John McCandless along with the Lytton and Mt. Currie First Nations worked very hard to preserve the whole Stein Valley and they succeeded. Now the Stein Valley is protected forever.
Once Berm hiked through the complete Stein Valley with a friend and his father. They had to drop them off with a helicopter at Tundra lake way up high in the valley. It took them a week to hike all the way through the Valley which is quite impressive because Berm and his friend were only around 10 years old.
When Berm was about 9 years old he was the first one who discovered a special culturally modified tree. It was so unusual because it had pictographs in the bark of the tree.
Here you can see how a regular culturally modified tree looks like. The First Nations did this so they could make things out of the bark of the tree without killing the tree.

Since the Stein Valley is well protected, there are over 50 different species who live in the Valley. For the Nlaka’pamux people it has been a very spiritual place for thousands of years. (1)

It had been such a long time since Berm had gone back to the lower Stein and he was very excited to go there again.

Arriving at the parking lot there were just two cars parked there. We were happy to see that, because we didn’t want to come across a lot of people during the hike. We mostly wanted to enjoy nature at its fullest.
I had never done a camping trip where I had to hike in with all our gear and food, so I was excited to try it out.

Sorting out the food part for our trip was quite challenging since we are following a strict elimination diet (Low FODMAP Paleo Approach diet). Weeks before the trip I had been cooking a whole bunch and I dehydrated some plantains and carrots, but mostly I precooked a lot of our food and putted into ziplock bags. I also made a lot of snacks for during the hike as well (f.e. carob cookies, vegetable biscuits, plantain crackers and plantain chips).

We made sure we got every thing with us and we started our hike around 1 pm. The trail was quite small along the whole hike. Nothing had changed on the trail ever since Berm hiked there as a young boy (around 30 years ago)!
After about two hours of hiking we arrived at the second camping site ( Devil’s staircase).
The Devil’s staircase is a very steep part of the hike. That’s why they call it the Devil’s staircase otherwise they would have called it Angels staircase or something. I prepared myself for the worst, but it was not that bad. I actually liked it, because you had nice views of the valley from up there.

The next campground(Teepee campground) was 4,5 km away, so we thought we would set up our tent there. Some parts of the trail were flooded so we had to make a way around it which was quite adventurous sometimes.
When we almost arrived at the third campground we heard a lot of people talking. There was a large group of teenagers that had set up there camp there, so there was no space anymore for us.
We still had enough energy to keep hiking so we decided to go to the next campground which was only 1,5 km away.

During our hike there were so many different kinds of odours in the forest it was incredible! One nice smell after the other. The air smelt so fresh and pure. It’s a lot different from the smells in the city, that’s for sure.
While I was keeping my nostrils open I also kept my eyes open, because every once in a while you can discover some pictographs on rocks. Those pictographs are hunderds of years old and you can still see them! They are very well protected and anyone who damages a pictograph has to pay a large fine.
One spot there is a huge wall full of pictographs. Some better protected then others, but they are all so beautiful. It really made me think of the First Nations who walked the same trail we did and who made those pictographs here on the rocks.

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Our next stop was at Earl’s Cabin campground. Earl built this cabin and he died in the First World War overseas. They say that he took $12,000 in gold from Earl Creek and that he has left a gold cache. There has been several attempts to find the gold without success.

Since there were already people at the campground and all the ‘good’ spots were taken we decided again that we continued hiking till the next campground. That would be our final stop for that day, because tomorrow we had to hike all the way back.
Almost arriving at the campground we heard rushing water. We didn’t know yet that we had to cross this stream with a quite strong current to get to the campground.
First we tried some different angles to get across the stream. Berm finally found a good spot to jump to the other side. I didn’t feel comfortable with jumping because my legs were shorter and I was afraid of falling.
I decided to wade through the stream. I changed my hiking boots for my sandals and went for it. The water was extremely cold that it hurt my feet, but the pain soon vanished.
After the stream it was just a couple of minutes until we arrived at the suspension bridge campground. We found a great spot and set up our tent. It was already 8 pm so we started to heat up our food and installed our sleeping bags in the tent.
We were tired but very satisfied that we made it that far on one day. We crossed a lot of tiny bridges, made our way around the floodings, faced some rain, smelt amazing aromas, saw incredible pictographs and felt one with nature. It was perfect.

That night I slept very well. I bought my own (first) new sleeping bag and it was very comfortable and cozy.
The moon disappeared behind the mountains and so did we in our sleeping bags.

The next morning we had to go all the way back. I could feel my legs being tired, but I still had enough energy to manage it.
On our way back Berm found a piece of stone that First Nations worked on to use it as a  tool (f.e. a spear). He really has the eyes for such things and I’m proud of him. He really flourish when he is in nature.
This was even a more important hike for him because he has so much history with this place. I feel blessed I could experience this beautiful place together with him. We will definitely come back to do more of the Stein Valley.
It really is a sacred place.

(1) http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/stein_val/