Last weekend I went up to Adam’s Lake with a few friends for a boating / camping weekend. Great time. Adams Lake is in the interior of BC just north of Salmon Arm. Having never been to the lake before, it was a bit of an exploration mission. We lunched the boat with all our camping gear at the south end of the lake, which runs for about 40 miles in a north / south direction. There is a road that runs up the west side of the lake only, so it leaves the east side almost untouched. There’s two provincial parks on the east side the are ‘boat access only’ but we were more interested in a wilderness adventure so decided to camp on the beach about half way up the lake, away from the parks.

The weather was perfect. Glassy calm waters and hot temperatures for the whole weekend.  We did some wakeboarding, some swimming, a little exploring (boated to far north end of lake), and found some time for some relaxing too. The only drawback, and it was significant, is that there are an abundance of mosquitoes in the area. They’re vicious, in fact. Between the four of us, we managed to polish off a whole bottle of Muskol, and still managed to come home all covered in itchy spots. It was such a beautiful spot though, that I’m hoping we’d just hit it on a bad weekend. The lake itself seems to be relatively undeveloped, at least compared to Shuswap and Okanagan Lakes. Could be because the water is somewhat colder, and maybe the bugs are bad all summer long. I’ve also heard that it is often quite windy there too. 

I’ll have to go back a few more times to find out. It looks like there are plenty of drive-in camping sites on the west side of the lake. Be ready for the sun to set early though, as the mountains are fairly high and steep in that direction. Although there were lots of signs of wildlife, we didn’t actually see any, except for a few bald eagles and loons. There is one island on the lake, toward the north end that looks like it would be great for camping, except it is quite rocky and steep. I’ll have to go back and check it out for future trips.

Related Links
Thompson Okanagan Fishing
Salmon Arm Cabins