June 3
We drove up the Friday night, arriving around 7:45pm, we were concerned about hiking in the dark so we hopped out of the car, whipped on our packs and headed into the park. That night, we stayed on Little Salmon Lake (6C), it was about 4.5km, and took us just over an hour. Since it was dusk, we saw a few deer. One of them let us get quite close and didn't scamper away, then another one scared us by bolting through the woods before we noticed it! We got to our site and set up our tent while the sun was still going down. We tried to get a small fire going to relax around before bed but most of the wood was damp and it was too dark to go searching for more. We played cards by headlamp in the tent and read part of the book we had brought. Also, for those considering staying at this site, the bear cable between sites C and D is riddled with poison ivy, beware!
Heading into the trail that would take us to Little Salmon
A Doe just off the trail
The sunset as we arrived at our site
Waking up to a clear sky
Oatmeal and coffee for breakfast
Ready for our long day of hiking
June 4
We got up early on Saturday, mentally prepared to hike about 12 km. We weren't exactly sure of the distance because we were leaving from Little Salmon Lake to the trailhead. It was quite hot, about 27 degrees with some humidity. We were set to camp at Buck Lake (1A) that night, and knew we were in for a long trek. We filled our hydration bladders, sunscreen and bug-sprayed up, then hit the trail, doubling back the way we had come the night before, until we hit the trail that would take us into the Slide Lake Loop. Once we hit the trailhead we stopped at the picnic table near the canoe launch for a snack of oatmeal cookies and jerky. Then we headed uphill along the north side of Dedication Trail.
We powered through, stopping occasionally to take photos, until we hit campsite cluster #4. By this point both of our hydration bladders were empty and we were quite hungry. There's a sign stating that you must have a permit for the sites in order to descend down to them, but we saw that all 4 were empty so we figured a quick stop for water wouldn't harm anyone. We refilled our water, and had a quick lunch of pb and j sandwiches before heading off again.
We continued on the trail, unsure of how much further we actually had until we came across a sign telling us we had reached Slide Lake Loop and had only a little bit longer until we hit our campsite. This trail was quite tiring, consisting of a lot of up and down hill, sometimes even scrambling up some rocks, where the trail was difficult to find. Alex and I were getting a little giddy from the heat, and named the blue hiker sign Billy, Our running joke the rest of the trip was "Damnit Billy, where are you taking us now!?" everytime we had to scramble up or down some rocks.
Almost 6 hours later, we reached campsite 1. We had reserved site A, so we followed the sign past the privy down to our site. It was quite large, and had a decent amount of privacy, site B was close enough we could see each other through the bushes, but not close enough that we could hear and see everything. We set up our tent and then played a bit of cards until it was time to start a fire for supper. Our supper was basmati rice and dehydrated chicken we had made at home. In a word, GROSS. The chicken didn't hydrate as we had expected and we ended up eating dry stringy chicken.
After supper, we sat around the fire reading for a little bit, then headed into the tent to read some more and sleep after our long day.
One of the amazing lookouts on this trail
More cliche photos, but I love lookouts.
Finally made it!
After 12km, we were grateful to see this
Drying out our boots and socks
View from the site
Day 2 ended up being 15.6 km and took us 5:50 minutes, including our lunch break and lookout rests. This site was gorgeous, but the other side of the lake is public property and has some cottages, so just after suppertime there was a fishing boat trolling the water blaring rock music. So much for a peaceful night in the woods!
June 5
Sunday morning, we were woken up by a downpour of rain at 6 am. Luckily the tent pad was heavily sheltered by trees, so when we woke up the tent was still dry. We tore down the tent in record time, packing everything we could before breakfast. We ate and pumped water in the pouring rain, already soaked before we even fully broke camp. I was pretty sure we had about 10-13 km left, but wasn't sure the exact amount so we decided to just brave the rain and get out as fast as we could. Little did we know, it would pour for all 14 km that morning.
We walked on, scrambling down over rock formations that were apparently a trail, following Billy for quite a while. We came across some more lookouts, but decided to just power through rather than stop for lunch or snacks. We ate as we walked, only stopping once at a lookout to take our packs off for a minute. This trip, I discovered how unpadded my pack was, sure it was great for canoe trips where I only wore it for 1-2 km max, but 10+ km? Not so great.
We saw quite a bit of wildlife on our way out of the park. The cooler weather and the rain brought out snapping turtles, wild turkeys, some more deer and a beaver. At one point, Alex and I were both quiet, just hiking along, when we came over a little ridge and heard what sounded like a human scream. We looked up to see a deer running away, I guess we had scared it, I had no idea deer made that kind of noise!
After 10 km, we were both done and just ready to be in the car, and once we found the trail that ran parallel to Big Salmon Lake Road (Corridor trail) we thought we were finally out of the woods. Unfortunately, we still ended up having about 3 km to hike before actually reaching the Big Salmon Lake parking lot where we had parked.
We gave this guy a wide berth as we passed
By far my favourite view
The other side of this spectacular view
Finally resting with our packs off, also I seem to have lost a sandal!
Soaked! I also dropped one of my contacts in the dirt that morning and was forced to wear my glasses :(
Day 3 ended up being 14 km total, and took us just over 4 hours. This was a gorgeous trail and I would definitely recommend completing it, just be prepared to hike a lot of hills!
In two weeks, we're heading to Algonquin Park to do the Western Uplands trail with my new pack and Alex's new hikers (an eyelet fell off one of his Lowa boots as we were taking our boots off to get in the car, so Atmosphere replaced them for free as per Lowa's warranty.)
What's your favourite Ontario backpacking trail?
No comments:
Post a Comment