Pavilion Lake Dive Site Profile
Pavilion Lake is located in Marble Canyon, on Highway 99, about 18 miles/30km from the town of Cache Creek. It's a 4.5 hour drive from Vancouver via Highway 1, or slightly shorter via Highway 99.
The lake is 820m/2,690ft above sea level.
Pavilion Lake is a great three-season alternative to BC coastal diving. The weather is hot and sunny, there are no crowds, underwater viz is always fantastic, the water is blue, not green, and there's a a long list of diving activities that can be enjoyed here: altitude diving, fresh water diving, drysuit diving, deep diving, naturalist diving, photographic and video diving, etc. It's a superb location for a weekend Advanced Open Water course.
Logistically, it's a very long day trip or a leisurely overnight diving getaway. There are plenty of scenic stops and photo ops along the journey.
Click on the link for a map:
Pavilion Lake is best known for it's strange microbialite structures, reportedly over 11,000 years old. The massive structure pictured above resides at a depth of about 22m/70ft. Click on the link for a description of the lake from BC Parks: Pavilion Lake microbialites
Shallow dives close to shore can last an hour or more, and feature crystal clear viz, fields of grasses and vegetation, colourful algae, sunken logs and branches, schools of rainbow trout and shimmering light effects.
Water temperatures are 6-10C/45-50F at depth, or about the same as in the ocean around Vancouver, so a drysuit is recommended. Shallow water is much warmer.
A Pavilion Lake dive trip is available to clients from May to October. Contact us to request a price quote.