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Travel Story

Rugged Barkley Valley worth a hike

The late 1960s were a turbulent time and no year more so than 1968. That summer several prominent Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. were gunned down. At the Democratic Convention in Chicago in August, then-mayor Richard Dailey, Sr., unleashed his police force on peaceful anti-Vietnam war demonstrators in a naked display of brutality.

Baby boomers who witnessed these indelible events found themselves in the embrace of an "assassination generation" psychosis. Small wonder that clusters of disillusioned youth banded together and headed for the hills. While North American society seemed hell-bent on flame out, pockets of isolated tranquility offered the promise of sanctuary and reconnection with the natural world.

One such group, originally based in the Fraser Valley, made its way north to the secluded Barkley Valley southeast of D’Arcy. The U-shaped valley rests among the Coast Mountain’s Cayoosh Range. Historically called Lawlaton , a N’Quat’Qua word that connotes a paradise where food and game are plentiful, the valley took its post-contact name from a miner, Tom Barkley, who prospected here in the early 1960s. Perhaps the religiously-inspired Fraser Valley group may have found comfort in the fact that this was a place of spiritual significance within the traditional N’Quat’Qua territory.

Lord knows they can’t have taken much solace from the sight of Tom Barkley’s dilapidated cabin. It had fallen victim to an avalanche, a common winter occurrence in the steep-sided valley where carpets of snow pour down with the suddenness of unleashed frozen whitewater. The group hunted, fished, kept cattle, logged with horses to build their homes and barns, and must have enjoyed some happy summer days getting back to the land. Today, their stoved-in log cabins stand as mute testimony that it was the winter that did them in. According to long-time D’Arcy resident Frank Rollert, who occasionally hauled in stove oil for them, the winter storms of 1969-70 were so extreme that the group found itself up against the wall and had to be escorted to safety by the RCMP.

Times have changed but it’s still not wise to adventure there between December and April. If you’re interested in sampling paradise yourself, it would be wise to seek out the obscure trail that leads into the Barkley Valley in the next few months. At the moment you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find. Over the past several years the Forest Service and a local group, the Cayoosh Recreation Society, have taken the valley under their wing. With their stewardship, a series of interpretive signs have been put in place along the well-worn route that inform visitors of the history of the valley and its unique natural features.

Upwards of 350 mountain goats inhabit the upper reaches of the Cayoosh Range that hem the little valley. Although you’d be hard pressed to spot the sure-footed goats even from the stillness of one of the rock-walled hunter’s blinds erected near the peaks, you might be lucky and find a fistful of their thick white hair discarded during the moulting season and trapped on a low-lying juniper bush. Even if you don’t spot a goat, their unmistakable musky aroma marks this as their territory. (As you ramble through the alpine, keep a wary eye open for grizzly bears who are just as keen to avoid human contact as the goats. The bears dislike being surprised, so keep a line of chatter going as you move about.)

Exploration in the Barkley Valley is limited to those who come on foot or mountain bike. Only members of the Cayoosh Recreation Club in D’Arcy have permission to drive their ATVs on the trail whose origins reach back into the 1930s. Work groups organized by club president Laurie Dickinson, who is also the ecological warden for the valley, have rehabbed the former mining road into its best condition in decades.

At the outset, the trail passes beneath sturdy, lichen-draped Douglas fir. As the trail enters the Barkley Valley, the lush rain forest gives way to more open sections of spindly subalpine fir, a portion of which has suffered from a recent insect infestation. A local logging company has been contracted to clear-cut a swath in hopes of halting the spread.

Avalanches packing enough force to push cabins from one side of the valley to the other have cleared long paths down the slopes. In late summer these subalpine tracks are thick with desiccated thistle stalks, faded paintbrush, aster, and droopy-leafed lilies that have all made the most of the short growing season.

You can choose to make the campsite beside Elliot Creek your base (the Cayoosh Recreation Club has an A-frame cabin here) or continue following the trail that divides about a kilometre up the valley from the campsites. (Watch for an abandoned 1954 Willys truck that sits flattened in the field there.) For the best views of the surrounding peaks, and a chance to glimpse wildlife, bear left at the divide. From here, a trail follows Crystal Creek as it leads upwards towards Twin Lakes in the alpine zone.

Level ground is hard to come by. Fist-sized stones and larger boulders left in the wake of retreating glaciers are strewn everywhere. Chubby marmots have tunnelled much of the higher slopes. If you sit quietly, the shy but curious creatures will quit whistling a warning and cautiously approach you for a better look. It’s a mutual feeling. These bushy-tailed, beaver-sized furballs are always a treat to behold.

Although the main trail terminates at 2,165 metres, just below the first of two alpine lakes which feed Crystal Creek, it’s not difficult to follow a series of game trails that lead up farther to the open ridges. From those lofty heights you look down into the headwaters of Melvin Creek and Lost Valley Creek, the last two unlogged valleys in the Cayoosh Range. Off to the south, the ice-encrusted spires of the Joffre group of peaks crown the horizon above unseen Duffey Lake.

From up here the long-gone commune members might have taken comfort from the words of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: He who strides across the highest peaks laughs at all misfortune.

To reach the trailhead, follow the Haylmore Creek Forest Road that leads east from Devine. The Barkley Valley Road begins on the north side of the forest road just before the Kilometre 16 marker. Just uphill is an information signboard with an enlarged topographic map detailing the immediate area. The Elliot Creek campsite is located 5 kilometres northeast of here. Elevation gain is 325 metres. The alpine region around Twin Lakes lies a further 3 kilometres beyond the campsite. To reach it requires a thigh-burning, 455-metre elevation-gain climb.

For more information, consult Canadian Geographical Survey maps 92 J/8 (Duffey Lake) and 92 J/9 (Shalalth). Interestingly, although the old Barkley Valley mining road appears on topographic maps of this region from the 1960s, it does not appear on more recent editions.