| Wragge Beach is a BC Forest Service Campsite. Like Provincial Parks, Forest Service Sites have picnic tables, fire rings, out houses and quiet times. Unlike Provincial Campgrounds, they don't take reservations and you have to get to them by logging road. |
Our friends Lyle and Carol introduced us to Wragge several years ago. It's only a 90 minute drive from our home. We camp with them every year. |
We use one of the walk-in sites for tenting. Most of the campsites are drive-in, for people with campers and trailers, but the walk-in sites are quieter and have more trees. |
Here's the spot where we pitched our tent, in the shade, just off the beach. |
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We're still 'car-camping' not backpacking, so we take all manner of gear. Our little tent fits a queen-sized air mattress that we make up with regular bedding. |
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Looking south, down Slocan Lake, late in the afternoon. The lake is long and continues far beyond the point at right. The town of New Denver is visible just to the left of that point, a few white buildings on the far side of the lake. |
The rest of our campsite as seen from the beach. Lyle and Carol's tent is behind the hammock and the trees at right. |
Sharon and Carol cook brunch. |
Looking down the lake at sunset. |
There were no campfires for us this year because of a province wide campfire ban. Our area had just suffered a week of 43°C (110°F) temperatures because of climate change. Temps were back to the mid-thirties, a hot 'normal' for us, which now felt cool, but the forests were too dry to allow campfires. This wasn't the first time a ban had affected us at Wragge. It's always a bummer because sitting around the fire chatting late into the night is one of the joys of camping. But everyone at Wragge understood the necessity of the ban. While we were camping, lightning was setting much of the province on fire. Luckily, few of those fires were in our 'neighbourhood' although one large fire was near a village in our area and on our dive home we saw a helicopter working to suppress that fire. |
Looking up the lake. Other tent sites are spaced in the woods along the beach as evidenced by the parked kayaks. Sharon goes for a dip. |
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The view from inside our tent in the morning. |
Lyle reads in the morning while other campers paddle by. There are a few little islands in the middle of the lake. |
We forgot to pack a mirror so Sharon uses the camera on her iPad to fix her hair in the morning. |
The four of us played lots of board games at the picnic table, but I neglected to get any pictures of that. This photo essay makes it look like all we did was swim and read. In reality, we read, ate, gamed, swam, snacked, gamed, read, ate, and gamed some more. |
Carol and Lyle in the afternoon. |
Sharon and Carol go for a paddle together. Carol is on her paddle board, standing. Sharon is in the red inflatable kayak. It belongs to our friend Mike (in black taking a photo of Sharon and Carol). Mike and Kirsten, two other old friends of ours, joined us at Wragge this year too. They were camping at the site beside us and joined us for swims and drinks and games. |
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Sharon and Carol head to one of the little islands nearby. |
Packing up. The campsite provides two wheelbarrows to help those using a walk-in site move their gear in and out. |
Sharon brings a wheelbarrow load to the car. An incoming camper has staged their gear along the path, waiting to shuttle it into the next free campsite. Sites typically turnover on Sunday and Monday. We plan our visits to start mid-week to increase our chance of getting a site, since availability is first-come-first-served. Sites are almost always all filled by Friday. |
Our little car can hold a lot of stuff, if all the coolers and totes are tetrissed just so. Sharon still has her swimsuit on. She'll go for one last dip to cool off after we load the car. |
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