Thunder Lake

In late June, we took a trip up past Barrhead to Thunder Lake. We put in at the day-use area in the provincial park. There is a public boat launch a bit further down the road but the park is nicer.

The park has pit toilets, picnic tables, fire pits, as well as a beach and play area. This year there was also a kayakomat on site. From the car to the water is about 30 feet, with a slight step down to the shore. The water was iced-tea coloured.

The lake was like glass, with no boats or wind when we got there so we headed across to the south shore and turned west, working out way to the far end.

We saw lots of wildlife, including some deer and beavers.

The real story was the birds. There were loons and heron and cormorants and thousands of ducks and about 100 pelicans.

After having lunch on the water, we turned around and had a slight tail wind back towards the beach just as the afternoon waters started to churn up the lake.

Overall, one of the nicest paddles at Thunder Lake that we've had. It looks like we went about 12km in 2.5 hours (I was beat!).

Longhurst Lake

In late June, I finally got time to try Longhurst Lake. Longhurst is due south of Stony Plain on Highway 779. The lake is bisected (east-west) by Garden Valley Road and I paddled the northern part. Access is through Atim Creek, which is about 1.5km north of Garden Valley Road on the west side of Highway 779. There is a little pull out here by the bridge of Atim Creek. The shot below is looking north along Highway 779.

You can unload here and access the creek from either the north or south side. The south side is a short carry (20 feet?) and into the outflow stream. You can get in dry footed here but it requires some bumscooting and cussing to get out into the creek proper where you can paddle.

Alternately, you can carry about 100 feet down the slope on the north side of the creek. This is an easier entry (you push right into very deep water) but your feet will get wet in the boggy approach. Neither side was great and getting out was tricky because of the small muddy slope involved.

Anyhow, once you are on the water, you paddle SW about 600m down the curving Atim Creek. There were lots of birds here, including some young coots with bright red heads (no picture, sorry!).

You then spill out into the lake. It is basically a reedy shore with aspen and tamarack forest. There were lots of birds here, including this grebe nest with three eggs.

You can paddle up Atim Creek where it enters Longhurst Lake in the northwest corner, if you want (again, lots of birds).

The lake is about three or four kilometres around, bordered on the south and east by busy roads. 

In the middle is a large island.

You might be able to access the island on the west side, but I'd guess you're gonna get your feet wet. The lake has about 18 inches of clear water all the way across above a weedy bottom. I never really hit the bottom when I poled the lake--just endless goo.

This duck put on quite a show trying to distract me from this cluster of 13 (I think) chicks.

Overall, a nice enough paddle with lots of bird watching. I'm not sure I would go back since it is just basically a sloe. I wasn't able to see any decent access to the southern half of the lake when I drove by but you might be able to force something through the reeds.

Soldun Lake

In late June, I visited Soldun Lake for the first time. Soldun is a small lake west of Stony Plain and just north of Highway 16 on Range Road 20. The map below shows the access points on the SW corner of the lake.

The blue arrow shows the parking spot. You could get two cars here but there is room to also park on the shoulder.

The red arrow is a floating dock. To access it, you follow a quad trail along the shore for three of four minutes. The footing is mixed and quite uneven right as you head down to the dock. 

I put in beside the dock (to the left in the photo below) and that was fine.

The mauve arrow is the other option, which is a shore launch with a short push through a reedy channel. Just walk 200 feet east on the road and you can't miss the access point. This was the better of the two options, I think.

The lake is small (maybe a 2km perimeter) so you could easily paddle it twice in an hour. The water was very clean except at the very north end where there was some vert blue algae.

There are no motorized boats on the lake and just a few cabins. There were lots of birds, including loons and grebes. The lake was over calm, be small, shallow, and sheltered. If you wanted a first attempt at a more rustic entry, this might be a good choice.

The map of the lake suggests there is an accessible northern basin. I pushed about 40 feet through the reeds until the tiny channel doglegged and I could not get my boat past this.

Overall, a lovely and quiet albeit short paddle on a lake I've never been on before.

This is close enough to Edmonton to make this a viable paddling spot for an evening.

Baptiste Lake

In mid-June, work took me up to Athabasca and we snuck in a paddle at Baptiste Lake, just west of town. Baptiste has been on my list of paddles for a few years, but weather and timing just never worked out.

We used the county boat launch on the south-west corner of the southern basin. There is a cement ramp and dock here as well as a pit toilet, picnic shelter, tables, and a playground and tenting site. It looks like there are day-use fees ($10?) but I couldn't tell if that included kayaks and the county website was unhelpful. I think the answer is probably you should pay the fee.

The lake is basically two basins, stacked north to south with a narrow neck separating them. The shore is a mix of aspen forest and cabins. There is a lot of development here and I suspect that there would be a lot of boat traffic on the weekend.

I've never seen Baptiste as calm as it was the day we were there and this was the first time I've managed to put in here (rather than driving on to a back-up lake).

The water had the start of an algae bloom when we put in but it was nothing to really take note of. Friends in the area say the agricultural run off and development means the water quality at Baptiste is the worst in the county.

We paddled about 90 minute north and got to the neck between the basins. 

We also paddled up a small creek. There was a real manure smell here.

There was a lot off sketchy MAGA signage and inverted flags on the cabins and vehicles in the area, which was pretty off-putting. I wasn't sure what this pink flag was when we went by. 

Coming back, there was a breeze and, happily, it was a Taylor Swift flag.

There was a fair bit of bird life (there were no boats on the water) and we saw this Osprey take off with a fish in hand.

On return to the launch, the algae had bloomed and the lake as emerald green in the south end. It was quite a wild change over two and a bit hours.

Overall, a nice lake but prone to wind and algae. Just to the north is Island Lake, which offers a nicer paddle, I think.