A Beautiful Place To Swim, But Don't Get Your Slopes Up

It got cold during the night and I didn't sleep well because I couldn't get warm enough. I also heard a growling noise before I went to sleep. I figure it was probably a raccoon or pine marten. 

I woke up at 6:15 a.m. and Carsten was awake too. He said that he didn't sleep well either. He said that he heard something outside his tent too, but that his visitor was trying to eat the moths off of his tent all night long. There seem to be a lot of moths in this area. He also said that he could hear the sound of what he thought might be wing beats. So we deduced that perhaps there had been an owl around the site. 

We made a quick fire and ate breakfast before packing up and heading out onto the trail. It was about 8:30 a.m. when we left the site. It was nice to get an early start. 

In a very short time we got to site number 4 and checked it out. We were curious as to what we might have ended up for a campsite if things had gone the way we had originally planned. As we looked around, we were grateful that we had switched to site number 5 because site number 4 was high up on a rocky hill and would not have had easy access to the water. You could see it below us but you couldn't really get to it without a climb. Plus, there was no thunder box and it didn't look like there was anywhere comfortable to pitch a tent on the rock. We only looked around briefly before we continued on. 

The trail in this stretch was actually quite pretty mostly. The moss lined edges made the path easy to see unlike the previous day.

Although we never saw any hawks, we could see where the trail got it's name because there were a number of interesting rock ridges that the trail went over. 

There were no mosquitoes but there were the usual deer flies. You could never escape the presence of deer flies. Eventually we came to a muddy, dried up, creek bed with some stepping stones to cross over. As I stepped onto the first stone and pushed aside some under brush a huge swarm of moths came flying out from the vegetation. There were hundreds of small grey moths flying everywhere! It was like it was snowing all around us! Then as quickly as they flew up, they landed again and you would never know they were there. I had never seen so many moths all in one place before. It was amazing! 

Another thing that was in abundance here was partridge. Three times I saw partridge while we walked. Twice they were so close and I didn't even see them. They flew up from the ground almost right beside me and and made me jump in surprise. Unfortunately the disappeared so fast that I could not get a picture of them. I was able to get a picture of a little red squirrel though.

As beautiful as this section of the trail was, there were still maintenance issues. Dead fall was across the trail in many places. Sometimes I felt like Grover from Sesame Street doing his "Around and Around" song. Every time I came to an obstacle I sang "Around and around and around and around. Over. Under. And Through!"

At one point we chuckled as we came across someone's forgotten shoes. I wondered what their story was and what the person was wearing on their feet after they left these behind. Wedidn't take them with us because it was too much extra weight to carry.

We stopped for a rest in a pretty, mossy, rock garden. We didn't know it at the time but we were only about 15 minutes away from our campsite at that point. But that was ok. It was a beautiful spot to sit and enjoy for a bit. 

It didn't take too long to spot the big orange sign for site number 3. It had not one sign, but two. 

We got to site #3 at about 10 a.m.  It is big and open and beautiful! It is by far the best site on the whole trail. 

The site is situated along the shore of Crystal Lake. The water looked clean and inviting. 

In the water, at the base of the site was a large flat rock where you could stand while you work up the courage to dive into what I anticipated would be cold water. 

The site was mostly rock and was made up of multiple levels. From the shore, I could look back up and see Carsten taking a rest before deciding where to put the tents. There was a sign tacked to a tree to indicate to canoers that a campsite was there. 

The shoreline had Bluet damselflies clinging to the blades of grass. 

There were blueberry bushes all over and the blueberries were ripe for the picking. 

Exploring the site led to the discovery of a thunder box. However, you had to climb over dead fall to get to it. Since that is not a safe thing to do in the middle of the night, we would only be using it during the day. The box was moss covered and looked like it hadn't been used in a long time (probably because it was so hard to get to).

When I opened the lid I discovered that the only waste inside it was a bunch of someone's used beer cans.
I don't know who though this was an ok thing to do, but I was unimpressed by that. I suppose it's better than leaving them strewn about the campsite.... but not much better. 

Next we had to figure out where to put up our tents. That's when we discovered that even though there was a whole lot of wide open space, almost all of it was on a slope and not many places had a place to put a peg into the ground. I didn't necessarily need pegs for my tent, but Carsten did. So we decided that he should have one of the only spots where the pegs would go in which was at the base of the rocky hill. 

Since my tent didn't need pegs, I was able to set up my tent on the top of the rocky hill which overlooked the campsite. It was the closest thing to a flat area that I could find, but it was still on a bit of a slope. 

While I was putting up my tent, I noticed a wasp and a caterpillar on a leaf nearby. The wasp was just sitting there motionless and seemed to be watching the caterpillar. The caterpillar would make a weird jerking movement every once in awhile. I suspect the caterpillar had become victim to the wasp in that it would probably become host to the wasps eggs. 

I was soon distracted by a couple of Yellow-Rumped Warblers who seemed to be either fighting or mating under a big pine tree. Whatever they were doing, they were making a lot of commotion.

With the tent up, it was time to blow up the sleeping mat to keep me comfortable on all this hard rock. 

I have a new Trekology sleeping mat this year that my sister gave me for my birthday. The old one I had would blow up fully with only 9 breaths. This new one takes about 60 breaths to fill up, however, it is worth the extra work to fill it. It is not much heavier than the old one and it blows up much thicker than the old one does. They both have a valve that keeps the air from coming out once you blow into it, but the Trekology one has a higher quality valve. 

Not to mention, the Trekology sleeping mat has better shape to it that holds your body and doesn't slip out from under you in the middle of the night while you are sleeping. Many were the times that I would wake up on the ground with no mat under me when I used the old one. This one fits the size of the tent perfectly. 

Once the sleeping mat was blown up, I laid down for a moment to see how bad the slope was and to see if I would be comfortable or not. I determined that I should be able to get a decent nights sleep here. While I lay there, I looked up to see the silhouette of a dragonfly that had landed on the outside of my tent. It was lovely. 

And on the outside of my tent was a Rannoch Looper moth checking things out. 

After getting everything set it, we had all day to relax and enjoy ourselves.  I decided that the first thing I wanted to do was to go for a swim. So I headed down to the water and got in where the rock shelf was. I figured that was a good place to wade in and get a little wet while I worked up the courage to dive in. It takes me a bit of time to get used to the cold water. 

I got in so that the water was up to about my knees. And that's when I saw it.... a huge leech! It was an olive green colour and was about 4 inches long and about as wide as a large blade of grass. It was swimming like a little eel not too far in front of me. Then I looked down and there was another black one that touched my leg as it swam by me.  That was too much for me. I said "Nope. Nope. Nope." as I made a bee line for the dry ground and got out of the water. I am not all that afraid of leeches but I really didn't want to be swimming with them. Especially since they were so large and there were quite a few of them. I stood on the shore and looked in the water and saw even more of them swim by. I was pretty disappointed because the water here is clear and beautiful and I had really been looking forward to going for a swim. 

So instead I walked along the shore and looked at pretty rocks. 

I saw a little frog under the water that was trying to hide and blend in with the colouring of a crack in the rocks. He thought that I couldn't see him. 

There were quite a few of these bright red Iowa Darter fish swimming around too.

Carsten decided to go for a nap under the shade of a tree. I took the opportunity to sit and try to get some good bird pictures. There had been a lot of birds around earlier in the day but there weren't many around now. I did see a flock of juvenile loons though. 

​I didn't get any other bird pictures but I did get pictures of some other interesting critters. Butterflies kept coming to hang out on my shoe. I am not sure what was so fascinating about my shoe. 

My shirt was interesting to them too. 

A Noble Click Beetle went wandering by. 

This little Flower Fly followed me around quite a bit. 

Sheep Laurel flowers were in bloom everywhere.

When Carsten got up from his nap we fashioned together a little table. We took a grate that someone had left behind and put it across two logs. 

Then we threw a blue towel over it so that nothing would fall through the holes in the grate. We sat around and played Quirkle and Yahtzee using our new table. 

We made supper and when we were finished we put our food up in a tree. 

Then we sat around and watched the sun go down. There were quite a number of fish jumping in this lake at that time of night. Carsten and I laughed and said that maybe it wasn't the fish jumping up to get the bugs on the surface of the lake. Maybe it was the leeches jumping up to grab the fish! 

At 9:45 p.m. the mosquitoes started to come in. That was the same time as the previous night. They were right on schedule. We headed for our tents to avoid the bugs. There were so many of them that they could have picked up the tent and flew away with it! I could see them through my screen and I was glad that I was inside the tent and not out. 

​I went to sleep quickly because the fresh air and hot summer sun had worn me out. It had been a good day.