Cobb Lake
I was back in BC, with many recreation sites to explore if I felt so inclined. My first stop had an unexpected camper in it, with another showing up later in the week. My next site had expected campers – I was going to Cobb Lake, a larger rec site with a boat launch and 25 sites. I hoped it would be worth putting up with people to have a nice lake to fish at. Join me to see how I do.
High McLennan River
I was back in BC at a very ‘meh’ camping spot called Tete Jaune Spawning Grounds. It was essentially a small clearing in a dense forest with a river nearby, not visible from the camp. There was a trail that took you to the spawning grounds, but it was flooded partway down. On top of it, there were two sites (Three if someone camped on the river access road) and there was already someone in the camp. It wasn’t the greatest start to my BC adventure.
Flooded path. You can see the boardwalk starting way in the distance.
I was partway through the week thanks to my flat. My normal routine is to move Monday or Tuesday to get the best spots before weekend campers start coming out to grab spots. Believe it or not, some people come with a trailer on a Wednesday and “reserve” a spot for the weekend, I see it all the time now. At least it’s not perma-camping for the summer hogging a space. My plan was to stay through the weekend and move Monday again. There wasn’t much around so I was happy to do only a part week here.
Shere Lake. A little boat dock was here too.
I looked around on the map to see if there was any sort of promising dining in Tête Jaune Cache or Valemount just to the south, but nothing tempting beckoned. My explorations for boondocking were a bit of a hit and miss. I went quite a ways down gravel roads to get to Shere Lake Recreation Site, only to find it was day use only. Really? I wonder if the private lodge across the lake had anything to do with that… But it wasn’t a total loss, there is a spot to boondock at just outside of the rec site that you could walk back to the lake in a few minutes. If you wanted to boat, you’d launch first and leave your boat behind going to the boondocking spot. Additionally, I noted some other boondocking spots down logging roads near the Tete Jaune site – I’d rather boondock there in more open skies with a creek nearby too.
All that is left at Harvey station
I left the area without much regrets. The area is good for some overnight spots but not the greatest camping at least what I found. Looking between Tete Jaune and Prince George, I wasn’t see that much interesting camping, but beyond Prince George the camping potential improved. So I decided a longer days drive was in order to get to some more interesting camping spots.
The drive to Prince George is through some very sparsely settled country, especially past McBride. There is nothing for miles. Make sure you have enough gas passing McBride. There is no service for 200km. There is however an eatery. I was getting hungry, thinking I’d stop at the next good pullout, when I see a pull out with a food trailer advertising Donairs. I decided a donair lunch treat was in order, so I pull in and park. The trailer is old and you can see someone is living behind it. Going in, it looks like an old school diner trailer, crowded with snacks and trinkets for sale, with an order counter at the end. I see no one even after announcing myself several times. I leave, but hear someone in the back, who turns out to be the owner/chief. He informs me they are out of beef and can only do chicken donairs. I decide to switch to a burger and fries, which were quite good. 
The owner is an old fellow who had stories about his trucking and delivery days, even working on some big movie projects in the area. He was one of these fellow who had many different jobs in his working life, this food trailer was semi-retirement for him. He even had a stint working agriculture research; we might have crossed paths previously at the Saskatchewan part of our operation.
I continued onto Prince George full of food and stories. I had stopped at McBride hoping to dump and get water, but the water was currently under boil water orders so I skipped that, having been informed that the former Husky, now Esso as you approach Prince George had good water. I paid $5 for the service there, but it was a really good setup, no complains about drainage, and the potable water was a decent distance from the dump, at least once I found a spigot that was on.
I knew Prince George was a small city, but it was a bit bigger than I expected. I decided to take the direct route to the Walmart I was hitting for resupply, going through downtown. There are actually a few taller buildings in the 5ish story range so it feels like a small city downtown. The lights slow you down quite a bit, I’d go with the googles recommendation to go around next time. Walmart was the usual thing, but there was a Visions Electronics in the shopping complex, so I decided to see if I could get a new dash cam and headphones. Their ‘no trying the headphones’ policy nixed me buying headphones, but I did get a Q200 dash cam from Thinkware. The picture quality is OK, but the phone software stopped working after one try, I can live without that. I still need to get around to playing with it a little more, it is not configured quite right yet. At least you can configure it with some software on a computer – it just stores a config file on the SD card used to record video. Simple, and it works.
Cobb Lake boat launch
Leaving town, my plan was to check out the Cobb Lake Recreation Site. It looked pretty big on the aerial photos, but still was free according to the BC rec site map. I figured if I didn’t like it, the logging roads around there looked like they had some spots I could camp at. The road in starts out as well maintained gravel road, with the road to the site excellent as well, just the usual narrow road with pullouts. I see some spots right away at the lake, there are a few campers around. There are about half the sites close to the water, and half across the road with a bit of a walk to the water. I still had a choice in water side spots, so picked the most level that was a little closer to the water. I could see the lake through the trees and hauling the kayak to the lake would be easy. There are some spots close to the water by the boat ramp, but you are essentially parked beside the road too; a lot more exposed and noisy.
Kayak on Cobb Lake
I was happy with what I’d found, I was looking forward to getting the kayak unfolded and out on the water. There were people at the dock catching fish, I could see fish rising, so I thought I had a good chance of getting something. According to the fishing regulations I looked at while buying a license, the lake is stocked with Rainbow Trout. A local told me they can get quite big here. I unfolded the kayak and carried it over to the water. I could keep it on the path to see it from my rig, that is how close to the water I was. I trolled around a bunch with small spinners to no avail. The fish were still rising so next day I put on a Gomphus Dragonfly Nymph at the end of a float and slowly dragged that around for a while.
I was almost back to the campsite, having paddled back due to increasing winds when I see in the ripple a lazy fish break the surface and go back down about where my fly is. My rod bent back at that point and I knew I had a fish. Up to that point I had only had a couple of hits on both fly and spoon, so I was happy to haul something in finally, and just as I was finishing fishing for the day. It was a nice fish about a pound (yes, I use Imperial units for fish weights, I’m an old fisherman). There was a fellow at my landing spot who was able to get a picture, which is nice – the selfie is always a little close when holding a fish as well.
My spot was a bit separated from the others spots which was nice as the lakeside spots all filled up by the second day I was there. The weekend before Canada Day was coming up. I consider that to be the beginning of the summer camping season as most of the kids are off and you can use that weekend as the start of a week off with a day’s vacation saved thanks to Canada day. As I expected, the campground started to fill up with the approaching weekend. Unfortunately, the spot across from me looked right into my site and was one of the early ones filled towards the weekend. I had parked cross-ways on the sight so could at least get out of sight at my picnic table. It was the usual campground noise of vehicles and quads going by, kids and people chattering, and the occasional wood chopping or door slamming. I only tolerate this for good spots with something like lake access. At least there was very little music to be heard from other campsites.
Shelter on Cobb lake trail
I did have a fair bit of wind which limited my time on the lake. At least it wasn’t rainy, so I used some of that time to go for a walk along the lake, which has a trail that peters out after about 2km. I took the motorcycle out to explore some of the other logging roads in the area. There is some boondocking out there, nothing more than a clearing beside the road type stuff. I’d have gone out there if the campground had gotten too noisy. But even on the weekend, the campground did not quite fill up – there were still two or three spots left. This site is not too far from Prince George, so I’m not surprised it gets more traffic.
Cobb Lake campground from water
I packed up on Monday after having done some research on my next destination. There are a lot of lakes to the west of where I was camped, but I decided to bypass all of them. They tend to be popular this time of year with good access to many. I had looked up the Telka River Valley, finding a rec site and some potential boondocking beyond that. A bit further past Smithers was something more interesting. It was a bit of a drive in, but there were two lakes close together, each with a rec site. Join me next time as I go check those out.
