Alberta Paddling

It’s no secret that Alberta holds some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, and I am lucky enough to live very close to the beautiful area. I recently took a road trip with my Oru Kayak and some friends to some of the common and not so common lakes in the Alberta Rockies, and here is what we discovered.

Popular, highly photographed lakes can be seen by an entirely new perspective with an Oru Kayak. If you're an early bird like me the lakes in the rockies are very calm in the morning hours, however the boat rentals are never open that early so sadly you can’t enjoy time on the water. If you have an Oru though, you can easily set it up and get on the lake without anyone else. Imagine having Lake Louise or Moraine Lake all to yourself. You can avoid all the crowds of people on the shore as well and get right up and personal with the surrounding mountains. Original beautiful photographs can be taken from the Oru like this, not to mention that being on the water gives me such a calming effect.

We also went to some lakes I’ve never seen boats on because they are to large to transport in, another great quality of the Oru is how easy it is the carry into these lakes with no parking lots. Edith Cavell lake was one I was very keen to paddle. It was quite a rainy night before we arrived to the lake, but it made for the most beautiful dramatic scene. The mountains started to pop out of the clouds as the light brought out the details in their jagged tops. Mount Edith stood looming over the lake and we all took turns enjoying the glassy water with the Oru’s. It was one of those mornings you don’t forget. When the wind came up and the rain came back we were chased out of the valley, but I didn’t care because we got to spend some beautiful time out there.

We didn’t just go paddle early in the morning, we enjoyed stopping at lakes along the Icefield Parkway. Waterfowl lake is a special one to take some time at, along with Herbert Lake and Bow Lake. You could spend a whole day being distracted on the parkway stopping at every lake, and we did. Summers bring calm hot days where the sun brings out every pigment of blue in the turquoise lakes. Splashing each other and playing around just came natural. We managed to capture some nice photos from our stops as well.

If you are ever planning a trip to the Alberta Rockies and don’t want to haul a large kayak or canoe around on your roof I really recommend the Oru Kayak. It fit so simply into our trunk and was easy and light to move around or set up. The lakes in the rockies are all most too beautiful not to experience from another perspective. So do yourself a favour and really consider taking that next step further to get a more in depth experience that is environmentally friendly and extremely fun! We didn’t male it to all the lakes in Alberta, but we made it to plenty enough to make me coming back for more unique ones in the future.