VALENS CONSERVATION AREA – JULY 2013

We booked a weekend in July at Valens Conservation Area. This was our second trip to this park. It’s a very nice, close to home place to visit with a nice little lake for fishing and very nice campsites. This time we booked another large pull thru – site #161. The evening we left home, there were serious thunderstorms forecast. We drove through the first round of storms on our way to the park. The good news is that we managed to arrive, park our trailer and set up camp just before the next round of thunderstorms rolled through! Our site was soaked – but it dried out very quickly. It stormed most of the night, but by morning the site was dry. Here are some photos of our site:

And here are a couple photos of our site during the rain storms:

Saturday morning arrived with much cooler weather – perfect weather and sunshine! The last time we were at this park we fished from our kayaks. I caught a really nice pike, my first ever! So, we were looking forward to launching our kayaks and fishing again. Saturday we launched at about 10:30 am and stayed out until about 4:30 pm. I caught one very small perch but otherwise, we caught nothing! Surprising, as this lake is known for it’s fair size bass and pike! Here are some photos of our time on the water:

The rest of our time at Valens we spent relaxing around a campfire. The weather remained great for the rest of the weekend!

Valens is a great park to stay at. This is our second time here and we’re talking about booking another quick weekend trip in September of this year. We find it appealing because of it’s close distance from home (1.5hrs or less) and also how nice the park is. Despite always being busy, it’s always quiet, well patrolled and clean. An extra convenience is the second dump out station. We were hoping for better fishing, but some days are like that. All in all, it’s a beautiful close to home park that we really enjoy staying at.

Here’s a link to the website for Valens Lake Conservation Area: http://www.conservationhamilton.ca/valens-conservation-area

And a link to my Picasa web album for Valens:  https://plus.google.com/photos/116741237613027767021/albums/5903976374250686241?banner=pwa

And a link to my kayaking blog: http://kayaker67adventures.blogspot.ca/

VALENS CONSERVATION AREA – AUGUST 2012

We stayed at Valens Conservation Area the weekend of August 10th. The park is a quick 1.5hrs from home and easy to get to. The sites were pretty well booked up with everything occupied near our site. Our site was a large pull thru but not very private. I noticed most of the pull thrus in the area were the same. The site had 30amp and water service which was nice and it was fairly level. The pull thru area was in a stand of pine trees which left short needles everywhere, but the smell was so nice. Here are some photos of the site:

We had a campfire Friday night and retired to bed sometime before the rain. Saturday morning we woke up to cloudy skies and knew that the rain wasn’t over. Before camping here, we’d read reviews on the fishing in Valens Reservoir and decided rain or not, we were kayak fishing. And so, after breakfast we loaded up the kayaks and drove to the launch. Of course once our kayaks were on shore ready to launch, the deluge of rain began. It never stopped until an hour or two after we came back to camp soaking wet! The best part of the trip out was catching my first pike! In all my years of fishing, that`s one fish I`ve never caught. It was so cool! Here are some photos of our rainy time on the water:

We came back to camp around noon soaking wet and in my case, a little bit chilly. The chill was quickly gone after sitting around a nice warm campfire. The weather really didn`t improve on Saturday. We set up our fire pit cover and sat underneath it while it rained off and on the rest of the day. We had company for dinner, my brother Jeff and our dad drove up from St.Catharines for a bbq and campfire. Eventually the skies cleared a bit and we could see some stars, then it seemed to cool off and the campground roads became foggy. We awoke Sunday morning to sunshine and wind, but the sky was still full of heavy clouds passing quickly. It looked like it wasn`t done raining yet. We opted to go fishing in Valens Reservoir from a couple of “fishing platforms“ that were set up along the shore. We didn`t catch anything. Eventually we packed up and headed home a little earlier than expected. Here are some other photos of our weekend:

We enjoyed camping at Valens. The park was clean, the staff friendly and although not very private, the quality of the pull thrus were nice. If I were to camp again at Valens during the peak summer season, I think I would look for a site in a more private area of the campground. There were other sites available in areas a little more private, but they were a little smaller and not a pull thru. There`s not much we could do about the weather, but we still had a great time. Considering how close it is to drive to Valens and the great time fishing on the reservoir, we`d like to camp here again. Interestingly, Valens is open for camping all year with the exception of the month of December. That may be an option for us in the future. If you check their website, it has information on winter camping, events at the park during all seasons and of course an online reservation page. Here are the links:

https://secure.camis.com/hca/

http://www.conservationhamilton.ca/valens-conservation-area

https://picasaweb.google.com/116741237613027767021/ValensCAPhotos