Leighton Lake is located in Tunkwa Lake Provincial Park. It is a popular fishing and camping destination in the warmer months. The North Campground is used by off-road enthusiasts who use the backroads and ATV tracks of the area. In mid-fall, though, it was a quiet spot.
On this day, I paddled once around the lake, then headed down the Tunkwa Lake Road and then paddled Morgan Lake. Fall is a good time to paddle the lake. It can be a busy spot for most of the fishing season.
On a fall day, the river was calm, the sun was shining, and the downriver flow had slowed down to allow easy paddling.
I paddled downriver to the highway bridge area and back up, another section of the South Thompson River worth kayaking
Stake Lake is a favorite lake for a return paddle each season. It takes about 52 minutes to go around the lake twice.
On some of those days, after paddling, a hike on the trails follows, a double benefit.
On a fall day, I launched from the beach at the Pritchard Bridge and paddled out into the river.
I paddled upstream and the downstream flow was quite manageable for steady progress. I paddled up to Pritchard Provincial Park, a marine strip park along the South Thompson River.
I paddled past the park, around a rocky bluff and some farmland shoreline. On the way back, landed on the shoreline in the park and walked the beach.
With the salmon run starting, there were many birds on the river – crows, eagles, geese, and gulls were active on the rivershore. There is foot access to the two sections of parklands along the river (north and south of the bridge) and we are planning to walk these sections in late winter when the beaches clear of snow.
This will be a paddle I will return to do each year, in the spring or fall, when the flow of the river allows reasonable paddling.
Bush Creek Campground is part of Adams Lake Provincial Park. There is a good boat launch and a wide gravel beach. Paddlers can paddle along the shoreline north or south or cross the lake and explore the shoreline. Adams Lake is a large lake which can provide many days of paddling.
On the last day of September I paddled north along the shoreline and back, but there were some fine beaches to explore along the way.
The western shoreline has an interesting shoreline to explore. Agate Bay was visible 10 km north. The water was crystal clear and the lake was quiet.
A few cliffs extend down into the lake. The sun was shining over the ridge as I paddled back to the park.
The park can be a busy spot in the summer, but in the fall it was a fine destination for a day’s paddle.
The low-elevation grassland lakes of the Interior get long days of sunshine and hot conditions and it is common to have algae multiply in these spots. Trapp Lake was like pea soup near the end of September, but I paddled the lake anyway.
Though the lake was green and uninviting, the scenery around the lake was wonderful, and on a calm day, the reflections were perfect.
Most of the experience was captured in video:
Trapp has a number of pros (scenic, close to town, easy access, larger lake) and cons (highway noise and algae), but I enjoy paddling the lake, and in the future I will do that in the spring and skip late summer and early fall.
A Trapp Lake information page will be developed over the winter.
This was Day 77 of paddling in 2022.
On a September day I drove to Falkland, then up the Chase Creek Road to Pillar Lake. There is a BC Rec Site on the east side of the lake with a gravel boat launch.
At the start of the paddle there was no wind. The Pillar Lake Resort is located on the hillside above the lake for about 200m, but there are no other homes along the lake.
The lake is narrow, but it is a nice relatively quiet spot to paddle. The distance around the shoreline is about 4.6 km.
After paddling I secured the kayak, I hiked up the trail to The Pillar above:
This year I have been doing more paddle and hike combinations. On a mid-September day I paddled twice around Stake Lake, then hiked 6.5 km on the trails.
Calm conditions and scattered clouds resulted in lots of reflections and steady paddling around the lake. Click or tap an image for a lightbox view.
The hike was on double tracks to the northeast end of McConnell Hill, then a little-known track, to an area I have usually called The Basalt Amphitheater:
More paddle-and-hike outings are planned before the end of the season.
Once the logs were cleared from the path to Cooney Bay I put my kayak on wheels and launched the boat on the river. The goal was to paddle upstream to the sand-silt islands where the pelicans were. Paddling upstream was okay, but there is a lot of very shallow water so it was hard to get close to the pelicans on the other side of the river. I got close enough for a few shots with a telephoto lens, but it is very hard to hold the longer lens steady for the distances required, so only a handful of shots were clear enough to share.
Click an image for a lightbox view.
After the upstream paddle, I floated downstream to Cooney Bay and paddled a loop route on Kamloops Lake.
The launch area was very muddy and the path to the shoreline was narrow and it wound through many logs (pulling an 18 foot kayak), but once on the lake, the paddling was excellent.
Red Lake is a longer drive on backroads so if we go there to paddle we wait for good conditions. It is also a popular fishing lake so there can be a lineup to launch or land during prime times. For this reason I go to an informal launch on the south end of the lake.
A paddle around the entire lake is about 8.4 km so I often paddle about 5 km on either the north or the south end of the lake each time I head up there.
The north end of the lake has a lot of burned forest from the 2021 Sparks Lake Forest Fire.
This year the loop route was on the south end of the lake on a quiet weekday morning.
A Red Lake Page will be added to the website over the winter months.
Campbell Lake is at the end of a long, bumpy road and it can be a busy spot in prime times so I try to paddle it off season. Over the last few years, there have been pelicans on the lake in late August and much of September so I schedule my time to coincide with their time on the lake. On a windy September morning I got an early start.
The pelicans are usually in shallow water. Campbell Lake has a few large shallow bays which boats can’t get through. A kayak can slowly cross the shallow, aquatic weed-thick water to approach the pelicans, but a long telephoto lens is still needed.
I watched the pelicans then paddled around the lake, spotting a heron, an eagle, some geese, and many ducks. A paddle around the lake is about 8 km.
It was a windy day with difficult light for photography and videography, but I took some video clips, then flew the drone to put together a video:
The highlight of paddling the lake is to see the pelicans. I hope to paddle out to them on Kamloops Lake again soon.
A Campbell Lake page will be developed over the winter with detailed information.
Whenever conditions are marginal or time is short, we pick one of four lakes – Jacko Lake, Edith Lake, Stake Lake, or Paul Lake. The distance to the lakes is shorter, access is good to each lake, and they are enjoyable places to paddle. On this September morning, it was raining in town, but it was drier up at the lake.
There was no wind and only one other boat on the lake.
Some of the shallow bays were partly grown-in with various aquatic plants, but they were also filled with waterfowl. In this bay were about 70 coots and dabbling together.
There were 3 pelicans (see the video), a muskrat, two bald eagles, lots of marsh wrens, some mergansers, a gray jay, crows, magpies, and dragonflies. The lake had dropped since the spring, but it still was a great paddle around the lake.
A few moments on the lake are captured in the video, including 3 pelicans on the water’s edge and then in the air:
More information on paddling this lake will be added over the winter as the Jacko Lake page.
For some of the larger lakes, we can paddle half of the lake at a time, taking the time to explore the bays and marshy areas. In the middle of September the paddle was on the north end of Roche Lake.
We can paddle the channels between bulrushes on the north end, then head down the west shore and across to the marshes on the east shore before coming back on the east shore.
Some moments of paddling the lake are captured in a video:
Earlier in the summer we paddled the south end of the lake, launching from the West Campground. We will be back in the fall to hike the trails.
As summer wound down, the nights became cooler and morning mists were starting to shroud the hills around the area. In an early paddle on Paul Lake, the sun was filtered through the low-hanging clouds.
The lake was calm and quiet with no other boats in sight.
I paddled down past Gibraltar Rock. Crows, eagles, loons, and a Canada jay were active along the watery way.
For this day, I passed Gibraltar Rock, then crossed over the other side. There is provincial park lands on the south side of the lake too.
There are many fallen trees on the steeper south shoreline, but also leaning ones, and reflections in the still lakewater.
The paddle for this morning was about 70 minutes, another good day in the outdoors, my 67th day of paddling in 2022.
More information on Paul Lake will be found on the Paul Lake Page, to be completed over the winter months.
In mid-September Face Lake was the destination for a morning paddle. There is no reasonable public launch on the lake so I checked in at the Mile High Lodge, paid a small parking and launch fee, and used the boat launch (parking in the Guest parking area). The folks at the lodge were again welcoming and wished me well. I then paddled around the lakeshore.
It is accessed by the Paska Lake Road (paved). Continue to the end of the road which takes you to the Resort. Face Lake sits at 5800 feet, at the foot of Chuwhels Mountain.
It is a pleasant 5.8 km kayak around the lake. With no traffic past the resort, the lake is a quiet spot.
A few moments on the lake are captured in a short video:
This is a recommended lake for paddling in the summer.
Harper Lake is located in the hills east of Kamloops. The Harper Lake Forest Service Road turns off the Trans Canada Highway on the east side of the Neskonlith Indian Reserve, then climbs through the hills, bearing south.
The final 6 km of the road is narrow and bumpy. There is a BC Rec Site on the northeast side of the lake. 
A paddle around the lake is about 3.2 km. On this September day I spotted loons, muskrats, painted turtles, dragonflies and ducks.
The lake is a scenic and quiet spot, perfect for a day of paddling.
