Hiking to scenic Croteau Lake in Strathcona Provincial Park

By Keith and Heather Nicol

     A couple of weeks ago we did the popular Lake Helen Mackenzie to Battleship Lake hiking loop in Strathcona Park with our daughter and her boyfriend. This is a scenic 10 km hike that we highly recommend ( for more info see our blog post: http://keithnicol.blogspot.com/2020/08/hiking-lake-helen-mackenzie-battleship.html).  On Saturday Sept. 12 a ski buddy Steve and his wife Marj wanted to show us a shorter route to Battleship Lake and then on to Croteau Lake. With smoky skies in Courtenay and air quality alerts due to forest fires to the south of us we were having second thoughts about doing 10 plus km hike to Croteau Lake. But then we looked at the Mt Washington web cams and saw that it was sunny and bright at those higher elevations and decided that the air quality was likely much better up there.  It often pays to check these web cams before heading up to Mt Washington since often the weather is quite different between the Comox Valley and the higher elevations of Mt Washington and adjacent Strathcona Park. 

Steve walking next to Battleship Lake

 And sure enough as we drove up toward Mt Washington and gained elevation the skies continued to clear and the air quality continued to improve. We parked the car along the access road to Raven Lodge and located the “short cut” trail to the Paradise Meadows boardwalk which leads to the Battleship and Croteau Lake trail. We will provide the exact GPS location of this trailhead once we get the exact coordinates. It appears that this short cut saves about 1 km of walking on boardwalk and so will save about 20 minutes of hiking time (1 way) walking to Battleship Lake or other destinations like Croteau Lake.  This meant that we arrived at Croteau Lake in 1 hour and 40 minutes to cover the 5.1 km distance. 

A camper at Croteau Lake

 Enroute the trail passes by Battleship Lake other scenic lakes like Kooso and Lady Lake before climbing to Croteau lake. The trail is in good shape with some roots and rocks to contend with in places. Croteau Lake is home to a large camp site and we ate lunch on one of the unoccupied tent platforms. The lake faces Mt Albert Edward which means that campers have a picturesque backdrop for their overnight experience. We could have continued on to Kwai Lake but we opted to return via the same route we hiked in on. Croteau Lake makes a fine 10.2 km outing and is suited to a wide range of hikers since the trail is in good shape. For more information see:  http://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/strath/ 

Croteau Lake with the peak of Albert Edward in the distance