Gardom Lake near Salmon Arm and Swan Lake near Vernon

In late June, we visited Gardom Lake, just south of Salmon Arm. We looked at two access points: Gardom Lake Community Park and the Musgrave Road boat launch. The community park has pit toilets, a swing set, picnic tables, a nice beach, and swim platforms.

The carry from the parking lot was about 80m down a steep trail to a nice beach. 

My wife was nursing a lightly sprained knee so we opted for the hand launch down at the end of the lake. The hand launch has lots of parking, a pit toilet, and about a 10m carry down a good slope.

My wife made it down with a cane and a knee brace and the launch was sand-gravel and the water was clear.

The lake itself runs about 1.5km SW-NE and is maybe 600m wide. I recollect this being an electric-only lake so there were no power boats roaring around. There are also two islands. There may be some small inflows but I would guess this is spring fed from the formations on the bottom.

The shoreline is rocky or reedy with a mostly fir forest behind.

The coolest part were the turtles. There were hundreds of painted turtles sunning themselves on every log.

They were also hanging out on the bottom or swimming around.

Anyhow, we lost probably two hours checking out the turtles. There were also the usual birds and such.

The two islands are worth a paddle around. Main island has a picnic shelter and pit toilets! Turtle Island is a bit more rustic and slightly harder to get ashore.

Overall, this was a great paddle and we really enjoyed ourselves. There are turtles in Alberta but the sheer number here was staggering here.

Swan Lake
On our way through Vernon, we stopped to scout access to Swan Lake, which is just north of town. We looked at two access points off Highway 97.

The Vernon Rowinga nd Dragon Boat Club (blue arrow) has public access and good parking. The launch is off a dock or from the shore at the end of the dock.

A second option is off the public boat launch off Meadowlark Road (red arrow). TIhere is lots of parking and it is a gentle sand-gravel launch. For my money, this is the easier option with a shorter carry and easier entry.

If we pass through here again, we'll definitely give Swan Lake a go.

White Lake by Salmon Arm

In late June, we put in White Lake, just north of Salmon Arm. We checked out two launch sites: White Lake Community Park and White Lake Provincial Park. The community park has a small parking area, a life jacket loaner station, and a boat launch with a dock. I don't recall if it has an outhouse (I want to say yes but I just don't remember).

This launch allows access to the SW end of the lake, which is nice enough but also reasonably built up. 

We decided to continue onto the provincial park, which is about halfway down the north shore of the lake. As is often the case in BC, the pavement ended at the park boundary and the gravel road could have used some grading. Access to the launch was not well marked. You turn down the steep, single track at the fork pictured below. It was a fairly bumpy trip down. People had big trailers down there so it is super bad, but it was rough.

The launch has good parking, pit toilets, some camping spots, a dock, and a sand launch. There is also a picnic shelter but it is leaning pretty radically, so I'd give it a pass. The water was beautiful and clear the day we got there.

It was also very windy with white caps on the lake. The launch is sheltered by a spit of land so was calm and we decided to head northeast towards the end of the lake down the sheltered shore.

We went most of the way to the end without so much as a single paddle stroke.

There looked to be another takeout spot near the end.

We also saw a few painted turtles sunning themselves on a log.

The trip back was a real grind into the wind. 

Overall, this was a lovely lake and I would definitely go back (hopefully on a calmer day) and do a full circuit.

Waterfowl Lake, Icefields Parkway

In late June, we stopped at Waterfowl Lake along the Icefield Parkway in the hope of paddling Upper Waterfowl Lake. The road and trails leading to it were closed so we ended up paddling Lower Waterfowl instead.

There was no access to the lake through the campsite so we ended up launching from the viewpoint on the highway. There also seeme dot be access on the north end of the lake but I haven't stopped there yet. This is a moderately difficult entry that requires carrying the boats down one of several steep paths to the lake. Below is a reverse shot. It is steeper than it looks.

We likely could have paddled to the creek on the south end of the lake and carried or lined our boats upstream into Upper Waterfowl but we didn't have the time or energy to do that on this trip (at leasy 1km of rocky walking). Instead, we just toured around Lower Waterfowl for an hour.

There were a few paddleboards on the lake and a few kayaks. 

The weather was a mixed bag but pretty decent.

We thought about stopping at this spit on the far side and have a swim but we had a reservation and a long drive ahead of us yet so we skipped the swim. 

All told a nice paddle. Maybe next time we'll come prepared to make our way to Upper Waterfowl.