It doesn’t matter where in the East Kootenay you lay your head at night, the odds high are that it is soggy outside.

Thanks to seemingly non-stop rain the past month, as well as a later-than-usual snowpack melt, the region’s rivers, creeks and lakes are fat and sassy.

In the Elk Valley, the Elk River rolls through grey and commanding. In the Columbia Valley, the Columbia River and its wetlands, as well as its two headwater lakes, Columbia and Windermere, are filled to spilling over.

So far, the real eye-popper in terms of rising waters is the Kootenay River and its hydrological impacts on Wasa Lake, now in day six of flooding.

In this photo presentation we hope to show the slow, steady rise of water on Lake Wasa by running photos we published last week and images taken only a few days later. The rest of the images show the expanded mass of water gathering in the Columbia and Kootenay valleys.

As this item is being published on e-KNOW, a heavy rain thrashes down at Cranbrook, brought in by extensive gusts of wind. June, sodden June, has been left behind as we push into July, which weather forecasters declared would be hotter and drier than normal.

So hang in there, folks! Look on the bright side, at least we’re not dealing with raging forest fires. Little solace to the roughly 30 property owners in Wasa dealing with lake waters that rise a few inches each day (and may still for a few more days).

And little solace to property owners in such locations as Windermere, Tie Lake and in the Elk Valley, where waters also continue to creep upward.

Images by Ian Cobb/e-KNOW and Carrie Schafer/Through My Eyes Photography

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