Showing posts with label Amor Lake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amor Lake. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Amor Lake

All I can say is WOW about this lake. This is the jewel of the tour. Do not just canoe through, stop and enjoy this lake. Camp here. Do not rush.

Amor Lake, named for Amor de Cosmos the second premier or BC, is 362 hectares in size with arms of several kilometers long in various direction.

We had better than wonderful weather when we hit the lake. The water was mirrorlike.

On the arm you enter on from the Twin Lake portage you have a nice beach on the north side where you can camp about 1.1 km along.

The main body of the lake has a number of locations you can camp on beaches. One is at the northern end, off of the beaten path for the canoe route, another is on the west side across from a small island campsite.

The small island you can camp on in the island is heavenly. It is only about 500 sq metres in area but has enough space on it so that all nine of us could camp on it. The site has an outhouse there put in by the Comox Paddlers (trap screen door courtesy of 3rd Douglas). There is a fire pit with some benches around, a work bench for cooking on with shelves. The central camping area is shrouded from the lake by a thin screen of trees.

You can swim here from this island to others nearby.

There is only one road access point onto this lake and it is from a road that is not in the best condition. This means the lake tends to have almost no one on it. The night we were there we shared it with only six other people. Motorized boats are rare on this lake.

The south end of the lake has a large camping area called Mr Canoehead forest rec site. The campsite is on the 100 metre portage to Surprise Lake. There are also camping spots on the Surprise Lake end of the portage. I found this campsite not nearly as nice as the other options on the lake.

Twin Lake to Amor Lake Portage

This portage is only 800 metres long, but it goes steeply down from Twin Lake to Amor Lake - you lose 52 metres in about 500 metres of the trail making this a 10% grade. This grade is a very good reason why you want to do the circuit counter clockwise.

The trail starts across the road from the Twin Lake forest rec site and goes along the left side of the creek so you need to turn left over the road bridge to get to the trailhead.

The trail is in good condition but when I walked on the May long weekend, I found a number of fallen trees across the trail By the time we went through at the start of August, someone had cut away the fallen trees.

The launch point only has space to have one canoe in the water at a time.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008