The family went to visit an emptied out lake Kinbasket, it's part of a dammed up mountain lakes resovuoir that feeds a hydro electric turbine, the top of the Columbia river.
Lake Kinbasket
You can see tire tracks on the bottom of the dried out lake bed in the picture above. The lake is empty in the spring, the resovuoir water is used over the winter, the lake slowly fills over the summer as the mountain snow melts. It's the begining of the Columbia river, damned up and turned into a mountain valley lakes resovuoir.
Electricity BC Canada
The province of British Columbia, Canada, gets about 87% of it's electricity used from damned up water powered turbines. Biomass from the forestry industry provides 5% of the electricity, 4% is from wind turbines. The remaining 4% of electricity used is generated from petroleum, for off-grid use (Source). The red x on the map below is where these photos were taken, you can see how far the mountain lakes resovuoir extends, and the generating station south of.the mountains.
Look at all that snow on those glorious mountains, and the lush landscape below, it's easy to day dream looking up at them.
It's fun hiking among the driftwood and rocks along the dried out lake bed.
Horse Creek
Horse Creek is one of our favorite camping spots - the perfect name for a creek that flows down from Horse Mountain. Up to the tree line of the gif below will fill with water as spring and summer continue.
Lakeside Campfire Pit
We camp right on the lakeside in the fall, notice the water line in the picture below. Surprisingly in October the surface water was warm, but of course it was chilly if you slipped deeper.
After the resovuoir is drained all winter, you can see the obvious difference. The water will fill up all the way to the tree line across the way.
I'm not sure if you can see this stump when the lake is full, boaters beware - a friend was saying that in other parts of the resovuoir there are forests still intact that you boat over, I'll have to make it out that way this summer.
In BC Canada it is legal to camp on provencial/federal land for up to eleven days, then you have to move one space over - the family is looking forward to camping adventures this summer.
All photos taken with a ulefone Android cellphone.
