8
Wednesday, August 19, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Cooler high country recreation
eation at Big Lake
By Craig F. Eisenbeis
Correspondent
Big Lake and I have a
relationship that goes back
more than 60 years. So, on
one of our recent 90+ degree
days, when my hiking buddy
suggested water sports at Big
Lake, rather than a hot, dusty
trail, it wasn9t a hard sell.
Actually, we had con-
sidered the possibility on a
weekend a couple of weeks
earlier but were repelled by
the great hordes of people
crowding the lake. Having
roundly rejected the idea on
that occasion, we thought
a midweek visit might be a
more reasonable choice 4
and we were quite right!
Unlike the day of our
aborted weekend visit, we
encountered very little traf-
fic and unlimited parking
spaces. We pulled in at the
day use area and parked mere
feet from the lake itself. After
trundling our kayaks to the
water9s edge, a quick look-
around revealed that water-
craft traffic was also pretty
light on the lake. In our cor-
ner of the lake, we saw one
ski boat, one jet ski, and one
powered fishing boat; other
than that, the rest of the water
traffic was of the hand-pow-
ered variety.
After visiting some other
lakes, it always surprises me
to find Big Lake so clear.
There are places where the
bottom looks just a couple of
feet away, yet you can9t reach
it with a fully extended kayak
paddle. As soon as we were
on the water, I started remi-
niscing about my own history
with Big Lake.
Starting clear back when
NEW ARTIST
SHOWING
I was in grade school, my
family and another family of
lifelong friends spent every
Fourth of July at Big Lake.
When we started this tradi-
tion, there was only an unin-
viting, rutted, one lane dirt
track into the place; and we
didn9t see many people, at
all. On one of those trips in
the 1950s, we arrived ahead
of time to secure our cus-
tomary camping spot; and I
remember when we rounded
a curve and came nose-to-
nose with another car on its
way out.
Since it would take some
planning to get by each other
on the narrow road, my dad
got out to discuss it and dis-
covered that the other car
was driven by a college fra-
ternity brother of his. They
had kids my age, and we all
knew each other. Since there
was no other traffic, we all
got out of the cars and chat-
ted in the middle of the road.
The boy my age told me
how much fun they9d had at
the lake and mentioned that,
since nobody was around,
they had all been swimming
in the nude. Naturally, I was
shocked.
Years later, as a teenager, I
bought my own boat. It was a
tiny, aged, 12-foot runabout,
with an old (even then) 35
horsepower Evinrude out-
board that was capable of
towing skiers. Our friends
had a big, fancy 18-foot
inboard-outboard named
<Happy Daze= that far out-
classed my pathetic little
pride and joy. I got the last
laugh, though, when their
high-class boat broke down
and I towed them back to the
campsite.
In college, before spring
term finals, I remember driv-
ing up from Corvallis over
campground snow to get into
Big Lake. I camped there in
seclusion for a couple of days
to study in the deserted for-
est. It wasn9t much more than
a year later that I proposed to
my wife on the trail from Big
Lake to the Patjens Lakes,
after having known her for
just a few weeks. That was 52
years ago. So, yes, Big Lake
and I have a long history.
Not surprisingly, as I
paddled the lake in the
ever-present shadow of
Mt. Washington, I had a lot
of memories to look back
upon& far more than The
Nugget9s editor will allow me
to relate here. Suffice it to say,
last week, on a warm cloud-
less day, Big Lake was pretty
much the way it always has
been, albeit with a few more
people. So, after some relax-
ing kayaking and swimming,
I paused and spent some time
reading a book in the shade
of Big Lake9s familiar out-
door world. The temperature
was perfect beside the lake,
PHOTO BY CRAIG F. EISENBEIS
Kayakers relax on Big Lake under sunny skies in the shadow of a very
barren Mt. Washington.
in contrast to a much hotter
Sisters, which I returned to a
couple of hours later.
At this point in time, I
would certainly recommend
against water recreation at
Big Lake on a busy summer
weekend; but it was a very
pleasant experience on a qui-
eter weekday. As it was in
the last century, the water is
still clean and clear and quite
a nice temperature for swim-
ming, especially for a high
mountain lake.
The people we saw were
friendly and, with a little
care, social distancing is
really not a problem. I did
notice that personal flotation
device requirements on small
craft were not uniformly
adhered to. Considering
that there have already been
drownings on the Deschutes
River and in Scout Lake this
year, lack of compliance is a
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