On a windy day, Kamloops Lake is not the best choice for paddlers, but on a nice day, a tour of the east end of the lake is a rewarding outing.   Launch from the parking area at the end of Tranquille Road.   The road to Tranquille on the Lake goes past the entrance and continues on to the edge of Cooney Bay.   Padders will have to carry their boats down to the beach and launch near the river’s mouth.   Once in the water, turn the corner to Cooney Bay, then follow the shoreline.

There are some gravelly beaches on the way to Battle Bluff.   If you land, be careful of poison ivy above the high water mark.    The sheer face of the bluff rises above as you round the point.   Look for a smaller tunnel next to the train tunnel.   This is an escape tunnel that goes from deep within the main tunnel out to the east end of the tunnel.   It has recently been partly stopped up with rocks.   Watch for swallows nests high in the rocky bluffs as you round the point.   There are no landing spots at Battle Bluff or on the far side, but there is a pictograph on the west side in an alcove now covered with shrubs.   The shoreline past Battle Bluff is mostly rocky shoreline all the way to Frederick.

Frederick is a small community on the shoreline that is linked by the Dewdrop Road.  The whole lake here is surrounded by rocky bluffs with a few trees found in gullies.   The Cherry Bluffs run from Cherry Creek east to the head of the lake.   Along the shoreline is the Salmon Beach, the location where some salmon fossils have been found.   We were on this beach twice this year searching for the oval mudstones that can be broken open, but found no fossils.   Read this article for more information – link.

On the way back on the south shore are some stoneworks built for the CPR line in 1885 and reinforced several times in the last 129 years.  The large arch is made from quarried blocks transported by rail.

Where the river meets the lake, there are extensive sandbars running from south to north, leaving only a narrow channel in late fall and winter.   In summer, we can paddle across the shallows.   They are a feeding ground for visiting pelicans, returning seagulls, ospreys, loons, and ducks in late summer.   We can paddle across the submerged sandbars in summer back to our starting point,  a total of about 16 km of paddling (about 3 hours at a steady pace).   Pick some good weather enjoy Kamloops Lake.