Leighton Lake is the second largest lake in Tunkwa Provincial Park. There is a campground on the north side and there is a trail which goes around the lake, linking it with the larger campground at Tunkwa Lake. The west side of Leighton Lake is mostly open grassland and there is open forest on the east side. A single track trail winds through the campgrounds and over the rolling terrain around the lake. On an end-of-summer sunny day, I kayaked Leighton Lake, then hiked the loop trail. Both campgrounds were still busy and there were a number of fishing boats on both lakes.
Paddling the shoreline of the lake is about 3.5 km and the trail is 4.3 km around. If we include unloading and reloading and securing the boat, it takes about 2.5 hours. After a spring and summer of drought conditions, the grasslands and forest tracks were all very dry. Ducks were on the lake, turkey vultures flew overhead, killdeer flitted along the lakeshore, and magpies called in the trees. This is a paddle-and-hike I do every year, usually around this time of the year and I will be back to do it again next year. Shared here are some photos taken while on the trail, embedded in the post as a Google Photos slideshow.
Captions can be read by clicking on any photo.
