East Twin Lake

In late July, my daughter and I made our way to East Twin Lake, southwest of Edmonton. by Winfield. It is located just east of the Twin Lake campground and required about a 1.1km carry to get into.

To get there, drive to Twin Lake. As you approach the main beach parking area, the road forks. Take the left (east) fork and drive through the campground (along Range Road 33A) until the road dead ends (orange arrow above, there is a pit toilet here). You can unload you boats here and then go back about 100m to park (red arrow, more pit toilets along the way). The path to get into East Twin lake is obvious (a one-track gravel and dirt road) and roughly follows the green arrow above.

You start out walking through a pine forest that looks like the picture above.  You will want real shoes, not flip-flops, for the walk. Eventually, the trail starts to rise (maybe a 10m elevation gain over a long distance) and dry out, and looks like the trail below.

There are sign posts along the way and no chance of getting lost (you just follow the road). You will want to bring bear spray. We stopped a few times to rest our arms but, overall, it wasn't a big deal. It just took some time.

Eventually, the road curves north and drops down to the lake. There is a picnic table here and a garbage can. There is also an old pit toilet a ways back up the trail, hidden in the trees.

The launch is grass--just follow the slight drainage cut on the right side of the clearing. The bottom of the lake is sandy and firm. The water is pretty clean and there was no algae when we were there.

The lake itself runs east-west and is about 1.2km long and 300m wide. We went east, paddling into the sight wind.

The south shore is a fir forest with a walking trail just into the trees. The north shore is mostly deciduous and climbs up a steep hill.

The east end of the lake (below) has a small creek flowing in. The west end (not pictured) is reedy.

There were some birds (loons, ducks, a heron, and and osprey) and there are fish and beaver here. The water was clean but a bit murky (Twin Lake would be a much better choice for swimming).

We did a leisurely lap in 40 minutes (maybe 3km) and then had lunch at the launch. You could easily do Twin Lake and East Twin Lake in a day.

The walk back out was a bit of a grind but there was lots to look at each time we stopped. The hiking trails looked pretty well used.