By late summer the snowmelt has gone through, the Stein has dropped back into its boulders, and the lower valley smells of hot ponderosa pine. Chinook have come up from the Fraser to spawn, and a bear leaves the odd carcass on a gravel beach. The river’s name comes from a Nlaka’pamux word for a hidden place, and from Lytton you would never guess a valley this long sits behind that narrow mouth.
No road follows the Stein. A trail does, and the river changes as you walk it. It rises in alpine lakes near the crest of the Coast Mountains, passes through Stein Lake, runs a long forested middle valley where the gradient eases and salmon spawn, and finishes in a canyon of plunge pools that meets the Fraser just north of town. Each of the three parts costs more walking than the one below it.
Start with the lower canyon. From the trailhead the path follows the river through open pine, climbs a set of switchbacks called the Devil’s Staircase, and comes back down to water you can reach in places, as far as a suspension bridge about 13 km in. The rainbows are small and quick and live in the pockets behind boulders, with a better fish now and then in the deeper pools above the Staircase. Look for the spots where a fallen log or a gravel bar lets you reach out toward the current, and save the beach run just past the bridge for the evening.
The middle valley, from the bridge up past Cottonwood Creek, asks more of you. The trail keeps its distance, and reaching the river means pushing through bush, but the water slows into runs and side channels and the gravel fills with spawning salmon.
Stein Lake is the far end, deep in the park and a backpacking objective rather than a day’s fishing, with rainbows off its south shore.
Most day walkers turn around at the bridge. Above it the river belongs to whoever is willing to go and look.
Water and habitat
The Stein drains one of very few large unlogged watersheds left in southern British Columbia, and it runs fast and cold. Through the lower canyon it is a staircase of plunge pools and pocket water: trout hold in the soft water behind boulders, along the seam where white water meets slow, and in the tail of each pool. The far bank often looks better than yours. Leave it; the Stein is too powerful to wade across, and below the suspension bridge it is grade V water. Above the bridge the valley opens into flats, side channels and swampy ground, and that slower water and clean gravel is where most of the salmon spawn.
When to fish it
The whole river is closed from 1 January to 31 May. Snowmelt peaks in June and July, and the level can jump after heavy rain or a run of hot days; in those months you are picking at edges and creek mouths. August brings the lower canyon into shape, but the valley floor bakes by midday, so fish early and late. September and October are the best of the year, cooler and lower, with salmon on the gravel in the middle valley. Stein Lake and the high lakes are free of ice from July into October.
How to fish it
One fly at a time. A light four- or five-weight with a short leader suits the pocket water. Start with a caddis dry dropped on the slow water behind a boulder, rod held high so the line stays off the fast current; a few drifts in each pocket, then move up. When nothing rises, change to a weighted nymph under an indicator and put it in at the head of a plunge pool, where the bubbles thin, so it tumbles into the tail. On hot afternoons try a black ant along the shaded banks. When salmon are spawning, an egg pattern drifted below the redds can find trout and whitefish sitting behind them; stay off the gravel itself.
Access and safety
The trailhead is on the west side of the Fraser, reached on the free, current-driven Lytton ferry. Off the ferry, follow the road right for 4.8 km to the Stein Valley Road junction, turn left, and drive to the parking lot. The ferry often shuts in high water through June and into early July. When it does, walk the pedestrian walkway on the rail bridge south of town, about 8 km to the trailhead, or drive two to three slow hours of rough road from Lillooet. The upper valley can also be reached from the west, from the Lizzie Lake and Blowdown Pass trailheads.
Camps with bear caches sit along the trail, among them Earl’s Cabin, one at the suspension bridge, Cottonwood and Stein Lake. Expect cable car crossings, talus, deadfall and hard summer heat. Campfires are banned. Grizzlies, black bears and cougars live here, there is no phone signal at the ferry or the river, and help is far off. A wildfire burned through part of the park in 2022, so look at the park’s advisories before you go. The park is co-managed with the Lytton First Nation; leave pictographs and culturally modified trees untouched.
Regulations
The Stein is a Region 3 (Thompson-Nicola) stream, closed to fishing from 1 January to 31 May. The rules list no closure for the river from 1 June to 31 December; check in-season changes before you go. No trout under 25 cm may be kept. Use one fly or lure on a single barbless hook. Release all steelhead, and carry a Steelhead Conservation Surcharge Stamp on your basic licence if you fish for them. Release bull trout (Dolly Varden) from 1 August to 31 October. Otherwise the regional daily quota for trout and char is 5, no more than 4 from streams, only 1 over 50 cm, and only 1 bull trout (Dolly Varden), none under 60 cm. Fisheries and Oceans Canada sets the salmon rules, and the Park Act applies inside the park.