Red Deer Lake and Nelson Lake, near Ponoka

In early July, I tried to break up a trip to Calgary by paddling Red Deer Lake. Red Deer Lake is located about 40km NE of Ponoka and the best access I could figure is the west shoreline near the Johnsons Beach Campground. It looked like there was a public launch (orange arrow) so that is what I headed for.

When I arrived, access to the launch point was blocked on both ends (red arrows). It looked like you could drive around the eastern gate on the left (picture below) but I didn't try.

I then tried the campground (yellow arrow). The campground was operating but I couldn't seem to find anyone in charge to ask if I could launch off their beach (lunch break, maybe). Also, the beach was probably 200m from the edge of the water (below) and looked like a lousy entry due to water loss from the lake.

Eventually, I found a path through the trees towards the lake (green arrow) that didn't look too bad. 

After almost 100m of trees, it opened to a grassy field that gave way to mud flats and, after 200m, the edge of the lake.

The ground was very soft and the edge of the lake was super shallow so no idea how far out you'd have to wade to float (another 50 or 100m?) so I gave up. I did get an escort back by a horde of mosquitoes.

With that, I decided to call it and move on to my back-up plan, Nelson Lake.

Nelson Lake

Nelson Lake is located about 20km east of Ponoka on Highway 53. I was hopeful I could get in on the south shore here. There was a gravel drive with no gate or fence and a building that kind of looked like an abandoned public-works pumping station from the highway when I went by at 100kph.

I turned in to the drive and it looked more like an abandoned private building once I got out of the truck. I trekked through the weeds towards what looked like a trail down to the water.

Access was blocked by a gate with a no trespassing sign so I turned around. Some days go like that! 

If I'd had more time, I would have gone to First Chain Lake (which is just SE of Nelson Lake) or to Little Beaver Lake (which is just NE of Red Deer Lake by Ferintosh) but I didn't so I pulled back onto Highway 2 and consoled myself with an evening paddle at the Bowness Lagoon in Calgary (Glenmore Reservoir was too windy).