By the end of February a route that I try to hike is from the entrance area to Tranquille down to the shoreline where streams flow into the river, then along the rivershore toward Cooney Bay.    The whole area floods in late spring, but it is a wide estuary in the other seasons.   Conditions are wet after snowmelt, but we can pick our way downstream to get to a gravel beach.

There are several streams which flow from the hills down to the river.    A faint trail heads southwest toward the wider estuary.

We can follow the shoreline of the river, which braids out into several channels between silt islands, some still with ice.

The beaches become wider near Cooney Bay.

The gravel beaches of Cooney Bay were mostly dry, but ice packed much of the east end of the lake.

I hiked around Cooney Bay and up over the bluffs.    From the top, there were fine views in all directions.    There was a thin layer of ice on the northeast bay.    Mara Mountain stood above the valley farther east.

The view on the west side was down Kamloops Lake, with Battle Bluff jutting out into the lake on the north side.

I came back by a different route for a 6 km, 2 hour hike on a sunny day.   The Estuary and Cooney Bay at its best…