Chinook Lake

Chinook Lake lays near the entrance of the Crowsnest Pass in Southern Alberta. We are looking north towards Crowsnest Mountain across the lake. There is a Provincial Park here with camping, day activities, recreational trails and fun for the whole family. It would be considered off the beaten path as one has to take a series of dirt roads to get here and there are no large cities within a 3 hour drive. Most of the people here would be locals enjoying their day.

Here's the lake from the opposite view point, looking South West towards British Columbia. That would be Mount Tecumseh, which straddles the borders of the two provinces. We discovered this lake when driving to Fernie BC, it was hot and we were desperately looking for a place to cool off. Most of the lakes in the region are frigid, by that I mean less than 10 degree Centigrade or 50 Fahrenheit.

Not this lake, for some reason it's warm. Probably because it is not glacier fed and it is not shaded by mountains allowing the lake to get warm. It is also shallow and possibly man made because there is a dam at the exit of the lake. Hundreds of people were enjoying it's waters, we were swimming for well over an hour. The water was that comfortable and in the middle of July, the air was thirty degrees plus.

A path surrounds the lake and trails go off into the surrounding wilderness. There are no farms around here, no houses, just forestry, mining and outdoor recreation. Before we went swimming we took a hike around the lake to allow for the day to really warm up.

This is the stream that fills the lake, it's no wonder why it's so warm. The shallow and slow water has more than enough time to warm up. What impressed us is the greenery, this looks more like BC than Alberta.

Speaking of BC, there it is through the trees. We turned around here because it was getting hot and a little buggy next to this swamp.

Back at the lake and the reason why we took such a long day trip. This is the inflow to the lake, it's always nice to swim somewhere that you are not downstream from any mining or industry. Many of the lakes and rivers here are polluted with agricultural runoff, which would include pesticides and people just swim in them without thinking.

The trail around the lake is 2km, we took a side trip to extend it a little bit because with no elevation gain, it's not much of a workout. I'd disagree with the Hazards: None, there are mountain lions and grizzly bears in the area and temporary signs were warning people about leaving food around.

By now there were more people enjoying the lake. Kayaks and Stand Up Paddleboards are popular here. We had a blow up rafts just to rest on as we floated around in the water.

It's nice to be able to swim and stare at the mountains surrounding us. Normally we swim in the Ocean or a different part of the country where there are trees and the odd hill. If you look carefully you can still see some snow on the North Side of the mountains which is wild.

We certainly were not the only ones who found this little slice of paradise on the Saturday afternoon. Many people were sitting around enjoying Chinook lake which gets its name from a weather phenomenon that brings warm air from the Ocean to the Albertan side of the mountains raising the temperature 10 degrees or more unexpectedly. But it is always welcomed as we enter the winter months.

All photos were taken with an s24 and are unfiltered. Thank you for reading and enjoy the week.

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