Tag Archives: Cooney Bay

Paddle Battle

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We can launch a boat for kayaking in Kamloops Lake at Tobiano and Savona, but we can also hand launch a kayak or canoe at the end of the road to Cooney Bay.    From the parking lot to the muddy shoreline of the river is only about 150 m, but we have to get past high water logs that partly block the trail.    Hauling a 16 foot kayak and gear solo down to the river (and back) is not easy, but it can be done.   The launch is on a muddy bank and much of the river there is shallow with large muddy sandbars.    To get to Cooney Bay, the route/course requires finding the middle channel around the point.   From the area where Tranquille River flows into the bay, it is all clear paddling.   

Battle

For this day of paddling the rest of the scenic route was around Cooney Back, past a bluff, along a rocky shoreline and a small point, past Smith Cove and along the cliffs of Battle Bluff.    At the end of Battle Bluff the view extends down Kamloops Lake for 15 km to Six Mile Point.    On the way back it was easy to paddle in a straight line past Cooney Bay.

There were pelicans in two spots on the lake.    Chukar were chattering and swarming on the shoreline.   Seagulls, eagles, mergansers, and loons were hunting in and above the lake.   Trains passed by on both shorelines, including going through the one kilometer tunnel under Battle Bluff.  I landed at the beach in Smith Cove to do a bit of beachcombing.

This is an outing I do every year.    In most years, I try to paddle a route on Kamloops Lake 2 – 3 times.    It is not a good choice on a windy day.    On this day there was little wind and there were no other boats on the east end of the lake.    Shared here is a slideshow album of photos taken while kayaking the lake.   

 

 

To see captions, click on the link for any image to go the Google Photos album.

 

Thompson River Estuary Hike

Kamloops Trails Posted on by 1

On a grey day with a chance of rain in fourth week of February, I drove to Tranquille and parked at the gate.    I then took a rough path down to the wetlands area and wound my way out to the Estuary area.    From there I followed the shoreline downstream, sometimes hiking on the shoreline, sometimes, crossing channels at narrow spots, sometimes on sand-silt islands, and sometimes on rocky beaches.   The route was out to the sandy point where Cooney Bay starts, then back on the road. Various channels wind down from the hills to the river, but there are usually a way to the other side at narrows. This is a scenic route.    There is no … Continue reading →

Hiking the Estuary

Kamloops Trails Posted on by  

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 … Continue reading →