We needed to take a trip to the dump in early December so we decided to stop to hike the Mission Flat beaches afterward.  With the Trans Mountain Pipeline work underway, we couldn’t use the main entrance so we parked at the west end of the beaches and hiked west to east around the island and back through the willow – cottonwood forest.    The beach is narrower at the west end.

The beach widens out after about half a kilometer and we went around the north side of the island at that point.

Seagulls were stationed off the end of the (seasonal) island.   They took to flight when we went around the point.

The island has a few trees on it.    It is only an island during freshet.   We did a wide loop around the island and worked our way back to the Mission Flats trails.

We hiked about 3 km on sand and sand-silt trails on the west end of the beaches.   It is possible to hike about 5 km in the area.   We prefer to avoid the ammonia fumes from the settling ponds so we usually adjust our route according to the wind direction.

We opt to hike the riverside beaches of our area in winter.   The best ones are the West Beaches of the Rivers Trail, Cooney Bay, Tobiano Beach, Overlander Beach, Schubert Drive Beaches, The Dunes area beaches, and a few smaller beaches along the North Thompson, the South Thompson, the Thompson River, and Kamloops Lake.