Algonquin Backpacking - Highland Trails - Day 4

I woke up at 8 a.m. to the sound of rain. I decided to wait for awhile in the tent to see if it would stop. Heather was already up and out of the tent but I was not anxious to go out and get soaked when I had a nice, warm, dry sleeping bag to curl up in. 

By 9 a.m. I gave up waiting for the rain to stop and I left the tent only to find out that it wasn't even raining after all. It was just left over rain water dripping from the trees and onto the tent. Heather laughed and said that she had thought the same thing when she woke up. 

My mom wasn't awake yet so Heather and I sat quietly watching the loons swimming near by for awhile. 

My mom got up around 9:30 a.m. and said that she hadn't slept well. The rain had run down a slope she was on and the water had completely soaked one section of her tent and bedding. It had rained all night long and our tent hadn't fared much better. Heather and I also had big sections of our tent and some small sections of our bedding that were also soaked. It wasn't raining anymore but the trees and leaves were still soaked in a silvery sheen of water.  

​We had to wear a poncho to go to the boom box because of all the water that was still falling off the leaves of the trees as you brushed by them. We were not looking forward to hiking in this. Luckily we didn't have to go far today.

We had breakfast and then packed everything up while it was still wet.In an effort to keep what was still dry from getting dripped on from the trees, I wrapped my clear plastic rain poncho around my backpack amd carried it like that. It didn't do much good though because  the condensation just started to build up under the plastic which defeated the purpose. So I had to take it off again. 

​As we were packing up a lady stopped to say hello on her way around the lake.She told us that the rain was expected to stop by 5 p.m. today and that the weather was supposed to be nice tomorrow. She also said that the site we were aiming for was only about 20 minutes up the trail. She was only day tripping and did not have a backpack on so we figured that 20 minutes her time probably meant 40 minutes to an hour at our pace. 

We left at about 11 a.m. and headed for the last site on the lake. We had the opportunity to see the site that was right next to us and we were glad we had chosen the one we had. Although ours had been only 15 feet off the trail at least ours had some trees for privacy. The one right next to us had the trail running directly though the middle of it with no privacy from hikers what so ever. It was probably one of the worst sites on the trail. 

The tree with the campsite sign on it had a huge bulge in it. Probably the result of some insect infestation or damage many years ago when the tree was only young. 

The trail in this section of the lake was surrounded by very dense bush and it was like there was a wall of trees all around you. The footing in this section was was not as nice as the rest of the trail either. 

Within only the few short days that we had been hiking we were already starting to see more and more of the trees changing colour. 

And more and more leaves were starting to fall to the ground. 

We did reach one campsite in 20 minutes like the lady had said, however, it was only the first campsite in the set of 4 and not the last campsite. We still had a little way to go yet but it wouldn't be too much longer. 

We stopped for a rest at the second last site before our destination. 

This site was a super nice site and was very large. If we couldn't get the very last site then we figured we would just come back to this one. 

This site was in two sections. There was the fire pit area by the rocks under the trees, and then you traveled down a short path to an open area by the water where there was more space to put up a tent. 

After a short rest we continued on our way. We were almost there. A little chipmunk came to greet us and show us the way. 

Our destination site was off the main trail and down a side trail. We almost missed the side trail because it was not well marked at all. For some reason the West end of the lake is much better marked than the East end. Heather led the way and we went up a hill and found what at first we thought was our new campsite. There was a fire pit in under a clearing of pine trees and plenty of space for a tent; but under further inspection we found that the trail went past this and continued on. This was probably just an over flow site of some sort. 

After another minute or two of following the side trail we finally made it to our new campsite. It was about 12:15 p.m. and it had taken us just over an hour to get here. We were very glad that we hadn't settled for any of the other ones that we had passed. This site was the best one on the whole lake. Other had come close but this was our favourite. 

The fire pit had nice benches around it. There was the perfect combination of sun and shade. The ground was mostly flat and clear of underbrush.

There were beautiful old cedar trees all around. It was well off the main hiking trail and the boom box was not too far away. 

One of the best parts about the site was the teeny tiny swimming area. The water was crystal clear; the bottom was not mucky; and there was a nice , clean shallow section before it went into a drop off and got deep. 

We had a little chuckle when we came across a tree that had many lengths of multi-coloured ropes hanging from it. You could tell that it was the tree that others had used to hang their food from so that the animals didn't get it. The branch they used was quite high up and as a result it appeared that the ropes had gotten stuck and had to be cut down. What we couldn't figure out was why people continued to use the branch when there was evidence of the tree not being the best one to use. There were other trees around that would make just as good of a food tree as this one. You would think that people would say "Oh 2 or 3 people previously used this tree and failed so I am going to use a different tree". But no....there were about 7 or 8 different lengths of rope hanging from this tree. Needless to say, we used a different tree. 

Someone had also left behind a clothes line and we quickly put it to good use. The sun was only shining intermittently but the wind was blowing enough that our things started to dry relatively quickly. 

​So many of our things needed to be dried out since our tents had leaked the night before; we had clothes and bedding and tent flies hanging all over the place.  

We put up the tent but we didn't put anything in it right away. We wanted it to dry out first. So we left the door open and allowed the wind to blow in. 

Once again our friends the loons came to greet us. 

Looking across the lake we could just about make out the campsite we had stayed at the very first night of our trip. You could also hear other day trippers calling out to each other way across the lake. But it wasn't noisy enough to be disturbing and the noise soon faded out in the distance. 

For lunch we cooked a bacon and egg wrap. The bacon we had bought pre-cooked from the dollar store before we came. My mom had been telling us how awful the dehydrated eggs taste once you re-hydrate them so we were expecting this meal to not taste very good at all. However, my mom had brought along some powdered cheese and some spices and she added those to the eggs. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the eggs actually tasted very good!

After lunch Heather and I still had some energy left so we decided to take a short hike (without out backpacks) up the trail to the look out. My mom stayed behind because she hadn't put her tent up yet and she just wanted to enjoy some time to herself for awhile. As Heather and I were walking along the side trail to get to the main trail we came across one tree that had an abundance of orange ribbon that had been used to mark the trail with. Since this side trail was not well marked at all, we decided to take the left over ribbon and fix the markers ourselves. So we proceeded to tie orange ribbons around various trees to lead the way for any future campers. 

Once we had finished fixing the trail markers Heather and I got started on our trip to the look out. For the most part the trail was not difficult but we did come across one steep hill that was particularly difficult to maneuver; especially when the ground was wet. But there was no rain and the walk was quite pleasant. 

We came across a side trail that was marked with a yellow portage marker. We didn't have a map so we did not know exactly where the side trail to the look out was located; we were going by memory. When we saw the portage sign we began to travel down the portage a few steps. But then I stopped and I turned to Heather and said "I think we are going the wrong way. It doesn't make sense that a portage is going down to a lake or body of water and a look out would be going up a very high hill. This can't be right."

​ So I took out my camera and scanned past all the most recent pictures that I had taken until I got to the one of the map. Sure enough, we would have been taking the wrong trail if we had followed the portage. So we backed up and continued down the main trail. It was another example of the trails not having proper signage at this end of the lake. 

Sure enough a few minutes later we came to another intersection and there was another metal box with a map in it that confirmed we were on the right trail. Apparently zombie survivalists had visited here before. 

At least there was a clear sign posted here.  We knew it was not much farther now. Only 250 meters more to go. 

It took us about 45 minutes to get from our campsite to the top of the look out and it was worth the extra hiking. 

The view was breath taking. Down below we could see all of the boggy looking Starling Lake. 

There are no railings or barriers of any sort here so if you were bringing little children up here you would have to be very careful. 

To the right you can see the bike trail which looks like a road, and some sections of land that looked like old fields with dead trees and new trees starting to grow in them. 

A little more to the right and you can see the west end of  Lake Of Two Rivers. 

We stayed for awhile enjoying the view and talking until we noticed that we could see the rain coming towards us in the distance like a moving wall. We knew we would get caught in the rain but we stayed and watched it until it was almost upon us anyways. It wasn't a downpour so it wasn't so bad. 
  On the way back down the hill we came across a cluster of ants eating at something. I couldn't tell what they were eating but it looked kind of like some pine gum or something. 

We managed to get back to camp faster than we had gotten to the look out. It only took us 30 minutes and it was about 4:15 p.m.  It was at this time that I noticed 3 loons that were exceptionally close to our campsite.

​ The campsite has some good areas of vegetation near the waters edge so the loons didn't see us right away but we could see them. 

We think that they had a nesting area right around the bend but we didn't know for sure. We watched them as they swam away until we couldn't see them any more. 

At 4:50 p.m. it started to rain. My mom was taking a nap and heather and I sat under our clear plastic ponchos and watched the rain drops on the lake and the grey clouds rolling by. I remembered what the lady had said earlier in the day about the rain stopping by 5 p.m. and I said to Heather "It's only allowed to rain for 10 more minutes. Then it will be 5 o'clock and it is not allowed to rain." 
   Sure enough, at 5 p.m. on the dot it stopped raining and the clouds broke and the sun came out and we could see blue sky. 

It never did get really sunny and hot again that day but it never did rain past 5 p.m. either. 
   We got a nice fire going for the evening and had Kraft Dinner  with Garlic bread Bannock for supper.  After supper we played cards for awhile and watched as the stars came out one by one. Tonight we would be able to sleep with the tent door open again. We went to bed at about 10:30 p.m. knowing that tomorrow would be another relatively long day. Tomorrow we were heading home.