Keystone Lake - 7/31/2010

Keystone Lake was another body of water that I'd been wanting to paddle. Robbin and I had been there last fall to look around and enjoy the autumn colors. We could see that it would be a great lake for kayaking. The first thing I realized when I got there though, was that this lake is big and I didn't get an early enough start to explore it all.




I drove past the entrance to the boat launch area, and as I was looking for a place to turn around, I noticed a creek that fed into the lake. The creek seemed deep enough to paddle so I decided to head that direction when I got on the water. The creek meandered through steep banks covered with tall grass. You couldn't see what was around the next bend. I think I chased the same Blue Heron around every other bend.


The farther I paddled the narrower the creek got. A one point I had to hold my paddle nearly vertical to get it in the water.

Just after I snapped this picture a deer jumped out of the tall weeds to the right. It jumped straight into the air and I thought it was going to land in the kayak. I don't know who was more startled. After composing myself and fetching my paddle off the bank, I decided to turn around so I could explore more of the lake.

I ended up paddling almost 8 miles that day. I could have gone much farther in less time, but there are a lot of coves and other interesting thing to see around the lake.




The things that impressed me the most about Keystone were the depth of the lake, the clarity of the water, and the amount of fish that I saw. There were fish every where I looked. Even in the creek there were schools of minnows in the shallows and a lot of larger fish in the deeper pools and weed beds. I plan to return to Keystone soon to explore the rest of the lake. I'll be getting a much earlier start though, and I'll have a fishing pole with me. Check out my GPS Track Log in the Garmin Connect section located in the left column of the blog.

The shore is wide and rocky around most of the lake.

I thought this was an interesting tree. It looked to me like a prehistoric creature pulling itself out of the water.

The Sycamore tree growing out of the bank at the point and the whiteness of the dead tree laying on the shore made a nice picture.

Blue Herons are just one of the many types of wildlife that you'll see around Keystone Lake.

The boat launch on the Rt. 210 side of the lake is run by the PA Fish Commission.

The Amish pull 2 wheeled trailers carrying a row boat behind their buggies. They unhitch their horses and move them to the woods to keep them out of the sun while they fish.