After all the rain we had the previous day, it was nice to wake up to a beautiful, sunny morning. 
I opened my tent door and looked down to find a toad that had taken shelter under my tent. I was careful not to step on him as I stepped out into the quiet campground.  It was only 8 a.m. and everyone else on my site was still asleep. 

So, I took the opportunity to take a walk to the beach. I love walking along the beach by myself in the morning. That's when you get to see the birds and animals that you don't see when there are too many people. The path and the trees were still wet from last night's rain.

A little brown Veery sang it's song in the branches above me. 

When I got to the lake, it was deserted. It was so peaceful. There was the occasional sand castle sitting just out of reach of the waters edge. A reminder that yesterday this beach was filled with kids playing in the sand and water. And a reminder that in just a little while, the beach would be filled with kids again. I savoured these quiet moments to myself. 

I started walking towards the end of the beach. I could see in the distance where the sand ended and the marshy and rocky part began. There are often more interesting things down at the edges of the beach than there are on the beach itself. 

But not always..... I was looking in the water as I slowly walked and I noticed something peculiar in the water. 
It looked like a little lump of sand, which isn't all that unusual. However, this lump of sand was moving! 
I stopped and watched it for awhile. It moved faster than a muscle or clam would move and it seemed too small and the wrong shape to be one of those. It was about half the size of my thumb. 

I picked up a stick and poked at it. Nothing. So I dragged the lump of sand to the shore and out of the water. 
I flipped it upside down and saw that there seemed to be a tube of some sort under it. The top was not hard like a shell, but more rubbery. The sand on top of it made for very good camouflage. If it hadn't been moving I would never have noticed it. I had no clue what this creature is. I later find out on the internet that this was the larva of a Hood Casemaker Caddisfly. Caddisflies build cases using their silk. This particular caddisfly family makes a case of sand grains with a "hood" that covers its head. When I looked closer, I noticed that there were more than one of them moving about under the shallow water.  I put this one back in the water and continued my walk down the beach. 

I kept looking in the water for more interesting things. There were a number of little minnows swimming around. 

I heard a shrill cry of an osprey coming from up ahead. I searched the tree line and then I spotted it at the top of a very tall pine tree. And then I spotted a second one a little farther away. I walked towards them hoping to get a better view. I watched until one flew away and the other landed where I could no longer see it.  But I could still hear it. 

I continued my scanning of the water along the shore line. I started noticing a weevil here and a weevil there, floating in the water. I picked up a stick and started rescuing them. There were a lot of them. Too many to rescue them all. I am sure there will be some fish having a nice weevil dinner later on. 

I saw some sort of sand piper fly by me but it was too fast to get a picture. Instead, I heard the call of another raptor to my right. I looked up and saw a Broad-winged Hawk perched on top of a dead tree. It's a busy place for birds in the morning on this beach. 

When I got to the edge of the beach where it starts to get weedy and mucky, I noticed some trails in the sand left behind by some sort of creature or worm. Not sure exactly what made them. 

I did, however, recognize the large group of tadpoles swimming in the shallow water by the bridge. ​

I stayed at the beach until a couple of families with kids arrived to go swimming. It got too loud and the peacefulness went away, so I decided to head back to our campsite. Mom and Carsten were awake and having coffee when I got back. 

We started packing up shortly after I got back. I found 2 more toads under my tent. I always like to see what kind of critters I can find under and on top of my tent when I pack it up.  Carsten found a Bicolored Sallow Moth caterpillar near his tent. 

A White-throated Sparrow watched us as we packed up. 

A Racket-tailed Emerald dragonfly landed on the bench of the picnic table. It had lovely green eyes. 

There was a Green Comma butterfly that kept hanging out on our clothes and out tents and our hands. It made it a bit difficult to pack sometimes. It seemed to really like us and didn't want to leave.

When the car was all packed up  we decided to make a last trip to the comfort station before leaving the park. We got into the car and shut the door  and realized that the butterfly was in the car with us.!  So we took it for a ride to the comfort station where we let it go. I tried to shoo it out the window but it wouldn't let go of my fingers. I was almost beginning to think we might have a pet butterfly.  I had to carry it out of the car and get it to move on to a tree. 

We left the park at about 11:45 am. When we got to the town of Coniston we decided to stop for lunch. 
We found a little restaurant, called the Coniston Inn Restaurant, with a take-out window. We ordered our food and then waited for it to be made. (The food and the service here is wonderful, by the way). 

While we waited we looked around at the town. We had never been here before, but we were impressed with this little town. So clean, and cute, and cozy. Just from where we were standing we could see that it had an outdoor roller rink, baseball field, port-a-potty, post office, and a large park. 

When we got our food we decided to eat it at the nearby  Lion's Park. It was a wonderful community park. It was so neat and tidy. 

There was a story book walk. Kids can walk down the path and read pages of a story that are posted on signs every few feet. 

It had benches with dedications on them. Behind the benches were community garden plots. Seniors can come here and plant their very own vegetables and flowers in these wooden gardens. 

Some of the plants were also dedicated to loved ones that had passed on. 

In addition to the mini garden plots, there was a large community green house. 

We ate our food while we watched the kids playing on the jungle gym and playing in the water at the splash pad. 

There was even a chair that was the shape of a butterfly. It's so cute. I want a couple for my back yard! 

They even had a little, red, mini lending library.  The whole place was just so cute and well kept. 
Unfortunately we had to cut our visit short. An unexpected and fast-moving thunderstorm started to roll in. 
So, we quickly finished off our meal and headed for the car to make our trip home. 
I will definitely keep this place in mind for the next time I am in the area. It was a nice way to end our camping trip. 

 We got up at 6:30 a.m. and it was drizzling rain. So much for trying to make it off the trails before the rain started. 

I had slept well despite hearing an animal in the night again. I figure it was a raccoon because I could hear the chittering noise it makes and I could hear the scratching of bark as it moved up and down the tree. At first I was worried that it would get into our food that was hanging in a tree a little ways away. But then I thought to myself, that if that happened, we were leaving in the morning anyways. So it wouldn't be the end of the world.

All was well, nothing had gotten into the food in the middle of the night.  Carsten said that he had a visitor at his tent too. He thought it was a mouse or a mole or something. 

We ate a cold breakfast because we didn't want to build a fire. So, we were packed up and on the trail by 8 a.m. We started our up hill climb and it was not long before we reached the real site # 1. As we reached the top of the hill I noticed a female partridge just standing, unmoving, by the rocky fire pit. 

The reason why she didn't move was because she was waiting for her babies to follow her up to the top of the rock. 

We didn't want to disturb them, so instead of exploring more of the site, we stuck to the trail and continued on our way. 

For the first little while Carsten was leading the way. Since the trail was so badly maintained and the under brush was thick enough that you sometimes couldn't see the path, it meant that all the water on the plants would soak his pant legs. It wasn't even raining all that hard and yet the water from the plants soaked him so much that the water dripped down into his boots so that his boots were all wet inside too. 

Later on, I took the lead and the same thing happened to me. It was like we had both walked into a lake up to our thighs and then started walking the trail. We were completely soaked. The water in my boots was squishing and sloshing as I walked. We blame the poorly kept trail. If the vegetation had been trimmed back the water would not have been able to so easily reach our pant legs. I can only imagine what it would have been like if it had been raining hard. To top it all off, the mosquitoes were starting to get bad. 

I am not sure how far we walked. Maybe a couple of kilometers? It's hard to know for sure. But, eventually we arrived at the look out. It was a beautiful spot and it had a fire pit where people could stop and have lunch. 

This spot was one of the most rewarding of the trip. The view was spectacular. This spot is worth going to on just a day trip; even if you go just this far and then turn around and go back. 

I walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. It felt amazing to see all of God's land rolling out below me. The mist on the trees in the distance gave it an even more mystical appearance. 

We rested for a bit but eventually we had to get going again. We noticed a trail sign with the km marking on it on a tree at the look out. However, there were no numbers on it, so we had no idea how many kilometers we had left to go. But we knew we still had a long way to go yet. 

We went just a little further down the trail when we came across a second look out area. The view was pretty here too, but not as nice as the spot we had just come from. I thought about how anyone coming from the opposite direction we were coming from might mistake this spot as the look out. Then I thought what a shame it would be if they were only coming this far and then turning around to go back. They would miss out on the real view that was only just a little further down the trail. I was happy that we got to see it all. 

We had to cross over more dead fall that should have been cleared away. 

At some points you couldn't even cross over or under the dead fall. You had to go off trail and go around it. We had been hoping that as we got closer to the parts of the trail that we figured may be used more often, that there would be better maintenance, but apparently not. 

There were quite a few open areas of pretty, moss covered rock. Some of the rocks were perfect for stopping to take a rest on. 

On one of our breaks I spotted a Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar as it crawled away in the opposite direction. 

In some places the moss was orange and peach coloured. 

Even some of the log bridges were covered in moss. 

And one log bridge couldn't decide if it wanted to be a horizontal log bridge or a vertical log bridge. So it was both. 

Eventually we came across the 5 km trial sign. So we know that the look out had been more than 5 km from the start of the trail (if I had to guess, I would say it's about 7km from the start of the trail).

After this point the trail started to become a little more user friendly. There wasn't as much over grown under brush and there were more and more rocky outcrops. 

We came to one very nice, open, rocky area that had a fire pit on it. You could tell that people use this spot as a resting area and a place to have lunch. We could see the lake from the top of this rock but there was no path and no easy way to get to the lake from here. Now we could see why the family we had met the day before were not able to get any water. The trail really didn't reach any of the shores at any point. You could probably climb down this rock and reach the water but there was no guarantee that you would be able to get back up again. By this point, Carsten was running low on water and I had drank more than I usually do on a backpacking trip of this distance too. 

We spotted the 3 km sign not long after this. We were happy to know that we were a little over halfway to our destination. 

We came to a log bridge that had a stream running under it. The moment we took our first step out onto the logs we were met with a swarm. At first I thought one of us may have stepped on a bee hive or something. But luckily that wasn't the case. Instead it was a swarm of Deer Flies!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were about 60 or 70 of them all over the place! It may not have been bees but it wasn't much better. 

I had never seen anything like it. There were about 30 to 35 deer flies all around Carsten and another 30 to 35 around me. We moved as quickly as we could across the bridge and headed into the forested area of the trail. The farther we went the fewer deer flies followed us. 

But then Carsten pointed something out. That stream we just crossed over with all the deer flies may have been our last chance to get any water. We sat down for a moment. There were still about 10 deer flies around each of us now. We decided that one of us would have to go back to get some water. I told him that I would do it.

So we took off our packs, I grabbed the water container and I headed back to the deer fly infested bridge. Oddly enough, when I got there, there was no new swarm of deer flies that I had been expecting to find. In fact, I was now down to about only 5 following me. I was confused by this but took it for the win. 

I brought the water back to Carsten and we sat down and waited while it filtered. As we waited we talked and joked about the deer flies. We laughed that the deer flies were probably waiting by the water hole like a crocodile would, knowing that an animal would have to come by for water at some point and then they would pounce! And we just happened to be that animal. Maybe they are smarter than we think they are. 

By now we were getting tired. More tired than we should have been. But the extra weight of all that water in our boots and in our clothes was making it uncomfortable and slow going. 

So when we saw the sign for 2km we cheered up a bit. Not long now, right? But then a thought occurred to me. What if the 2km was only 2km until this trail met up with the other trail? That would mean that we would have 2km plus part of the other trail to hike which could possibly be an additional 2km for a total of 4 km. 
​We had no real way of knowing. All we could do was just keep going. 

We only hiked about another half a kilometer when we came to the "You Are Here" sign that showed we had reached the part of the trail that intersects with the other trails. That meant that we had only about a kilometer and a half to go. That made us very happy. 

We studied the map for a moment or two. We had a decision to make. We could go right or we could go left. Both directions would bring us to the exit. But which direction was shorter? We figured that going left was the shorter route. Besides, going right would bring us to the look out tower. So that would mean more hills to climb. So, we opted to go left. 

We turned around to go down the left leg of the trail and that's when we noticed an old moss covered thunder box sitting right on the side of the trail. Carsten and I laughed. It was so mossy and run down that no one would ever use it. Plus it was right out in the open with zero privacy. It was right where the trails joined up so there was bound to be plenty of foot traffic walking right by you if you tried to use it. No wonder it was in disrepair. Even in an emergency, you would be more likely to try to find a place in the bush somewhere than to try to use that thing. I found it strange that they didn't have one at some of the actual campsites on the trail, but they did have one right here at the junction. 

We were now on Echo Pond Trail. We had hardly gone far, when to our amazement, there was our mom sitting at the side of the trail waiting for us! We could hardly believe it! 

She had come with an empty pack and offered to take some of our stuff for us so that we could lighten our load. She also had brought snacks and cold water for us. Plus she had the car waiting for us in the parking lot. She is the best mom ever! She is always thinking of others and how to help them, and I love her to pieces. 

I asked her how she knew which leg of the trail we would take (because we could have gone right instead of left at the sign) and she said that she just figured we would go the shortest way and that this seemed to be the shortest. I asked her how long she had been waiting there. She had started the trail about an hour before we met up with her and hadn't really been sitting there too long. Maybe half an hour or so. 

The three of us walked together for a bit and exchanged stories about how our last couple of days had been. Mom told us about a partridge and a rabbit that had been visiting her every day at the campsite. 
​ 
Mom and I were slower to walk and were enjoying the scenery. The path was now easy going and we stopped often to take pictures. Carsten was eager to get to the end of the trail so that he could finally change out of his wet boots. So, he walked on ahead without us. 

We had just gotten past the 1 km marker when mom and I saw some movement in the bush. Over to our right were a couple of partridge. Bot does this park have a whole lot of partridge! I think this had to have been my 7th or 8th time seeing them on this trip so far. There were 2 of them but they didn't want to be seen like the others had. So they hurried off further into the trees, making it harder for us to see them. 

We also noticed a pretty little Northern Azure butterfly. It was difficult to get a picture of it because it didn't want to sit still.

The trail took us along the shoreline of a lake. I had hoped to see some turtles, but I didn't see any. I did see some beautiful white water lilies though. 

At long last we got to the parking lot. It was about 1:30 pm and the sky was grey. We were expecting more rain anytime soon. 

We got to site 205 where mom had already been camping for the past few days. So her tent was already up. Carsten and I quickly put up our tents before it started to rain. The ground was tough clay and was difficult to get pegs into. I chose to put up my larger, orange, tent that I brought along specifically to use on the main camp ground.   

It had more room to stand up in to get changed, and I was able to set up a chair in there so that I could sit and read a book at night if I wanted to. It was so nice to get into some dry clothes. I had to wear my beach shoes because my boots were completely soaked and would not be dry any time soon. 

After getting into dry clothes, we sat at the picnic table for awhile and ate lunch. While we were doing that, some staff members came and took down the post that holds our permits. They said that they were replacing them with new ones. They didn't come back that day so now we had no place to put our permits. 

While mom and Carsten rested, I took the car and explored the park for a bit. First stop was the office to let them know that we were back. Second stop was the park store. The store was nice inside and the staff greeted me the instant I walked in the door, asking me if I needed anything.  I purchased a sticker to put in my little park passport book, as well as a couple other odds and ends.  

The next place I went was down to the day beach to see what it was like. I parked the car in the parking lot and walked down a wide path that opened up to a grassy area. Here I found a circle of benches around a firepit. 

Just beyond the fire pit was the day beach. It was a beautiful, long, sandy beach. There were a good number of picnic tables and there was room for plenty of people.  But with the weather the way it was, there weren't many people there at that moment. 

Back up on the grassy area there was a children's playground. It had a jungle gym, some swings, some baby swings, and some metal rings to climb and swing on. 

The day beach and the campground beach connect up with each other if you want to walk from one to the other along a large access way that follows the shoreline. Eventually it brings you to the pet access area that they just newly added. 

Well, it wasn't so much as they added a new section as it was that they took an existing section and zoned it as the pet exercise area. But there is nothing wrong with that. It means a nice sandy beach for the dogs, and picnic tables for their human companions. 

When it started to rain, I decided to head back. After all, I didn't have another pair of dry shoes and I didn't want to risk getting these ones soaked too. 

When I got back, I found that mom and Carsten had put up a tarp over one of the picnic tables. We hadn't brought a dining tent with us.  Now we were able to play a few games of Qwirkle at the table. 

When it was supper time we decided to take a drive to the near by town of Cartier and eat dinner at a restaurant. We found a place called the Pine Grove Restaurant and ordered our food as take out. Then we sat outside under a shelter at a wooden picnic table. The lady who owned the restaurant was super friendly and the food was wonderful. The wooden picnic table had 4 sides of benches instead of just two. My mom told the owner that she liked the table and the lady said that "Teddy built it". So kudos to Teddy!  You did a great job on the table! 

When we got back from dinner we decided to dry some of our clothes in the laundry room of the comfort station. Carsten had no dry clothes to sleep in and mom had a couple things that were wet too. Plus the mosquitoes were terrible at this point so it was a good excuse to get inside and away from them. So we gathered up our loonies and quarters and put on a load. I thought that it would take two cycles to dry everything, but it only took one. So the clothes were dried rather quickly.

The comfort station itself was not overly big. It was well lit and had stairs leading up to it. When it rained real hard there was a bit of flooding on the top of the stairs because one of the eaves troughs needed fixing. 

Inside, the stalls were stainless steel. My mom had told me that the staff had washed the bathrooms earlier in the day but that they had used a dirty, smelly mop and that the water they were using was not clean. She said that they could really do with new mops. The floor of the bathroom and the musty smell in there confirmed what she had told me. The bathroom didn't really feel clean to me. That's the problem with stainless steel. It leaves streaks and water marks. So the doors and walls looked streaky. 

When the laundry was done and folded I carried it down the road to the campsite. As I walked I could see the shape of some sort of bird on the road. It was starting to get dark so it was just a dark blob at first. 

As I got closer, I realized that it was the partridge that mom said had been visiting the campsite. Sure enough as I followed it down the road, it turned into our campsite and continued on past the fire place and then into the bush. 

The rain was starting to fall again and the mosquitoes were relentless. Even in the rain they just kept coming. So that made the decision to go into our tents and go to bed an easy one. It had been a long day and we were ready to get some rest. 

​I had enjoyed the backpacking trip but next time, I think I will make a point to go in August when we aren't in the height of bug season. 

I woke up at 8:40 a.m. and came out of my tent to find that Carsten had been up for a few hours already. He said that some small animal had been playing around in the camp site last night. He wasn't sure what it was because he could only make out a blurry silhouette. He figures possibly a pine marten or something like that. It didn't try to get into the food. It was just seemed to be playing and running around. 

I slept a little better than the previous night, since I wasn't as cold, but my muscles were stiff this morning from trying to keep myself from sliding down the slope all night. And the backs of my legs were sore from walking up and down the slopes of the rocks all day yesterday. It seemed odd, but it actually felt better to walk up hill than down today. 

It was a beautiful sunny morning. We packed up and headed for site # 1 at about 11 a.m. 

We hadn't been walking for very long when we started to come up over a bend. I stopped in my tracks and Carsten stopped too, so as not to bump into me. There, sitting in front of me was a beautiful male Spruce Grouse. He didn't move and just looked at me. I barely moved except to take a few pictures. The red markings and colours on him were vibrant against the pale coloured deer moss that was all around him. 

Eventually Carsten whispered that he couldn't stand there for much longer because the pack was getting heavy. I said "Ok. I guess I will have to scare him off". So I started to move towards the grouse. But instead of it getting scared and fleeing in fright, he just started walking down the path in the same direction that I was walking in. We walked together for about 40 feet until finally he decided to walk off in a different direction. He never did flee. He just casually went about his merry way. 

I was still smiling from my encounter with the grouse when we came to site # 2 and stopped to check it out. 

From first sight of the fallen trail and site marker, I knew that this site was not going to be in good condition. 

And I was right. This site had to have been the worst of the whole trail.  There was just a tiny little spot down by the lake, barely big enough for one tent. And the ground was swampy and wet. You would never want to put up a tent there, especially if you were unlucky enough to get rainy weather. There was no fire pit, and no thunder box. There was really nothing there at all. I couldn't believe this was even a site. 

The only thing nice about this site was the lake itself. Which isn't surprising considering it is the same lake that site # 3 is on. But you can't put up a tent in a lake so no matter how pretty it is, the site was not usable. 

There was one spot that may have been possible to camp on that was close by. But you had to bush wack through the trees to get to it because there was no direct trail to it. It was a big rocky area that was covered in moss and dead branches. It would be a bit of a climb but not impossible. I did not get a good look at the top because the climb up was too much with a pack on my back. So I don't know if the rock was actually usable or not. Even if it was, it appears as though no one had been up there in a very long time. So, note to self.... do not book site # 2 as an over night site when backpacking the Hawk Ridge Trail. 

Perhaps they were letting nature re-claim this site too, like they were for number four. But if so, then they should say so on the online map and they should also repair the fallen sign holder and put a sign in it saying "Closed for Regrowth" or something like that.

We continued on. In some places the path was not so bad and the under brush was not wildly over grown.

But that didn't mean that the trail was not without it's obstacles. There were still plenty of downed trees and there were some rocks that you had to get around. 

I happened to spot a False Crocus Geometer Moth basking in the sun. It's bright yellow wings made it look more like a butterfly than a moth. 

Between site # 2 and site #1 there is a 460 m portage. We stopped for a rest at the north end of it.  We didn't actually know that it was the portage at first. There were no signs along the trail saying that it was. 

​While we were there we decided that it would be a good idea to filter some water.  I made my way down to the lake by following the path of least resistance through the woods. It was over grown, yet it seemed as though there had once been a path through here. 

When I reached the water and turned around, I realized why it felt as though there had once been a path there. There was a big yellow sign attached to a tree saying that this was a portage. If there was no sign there, you never would have known that there even was a portage. Once again, the lack of trail maintenance raised it's ugly head. 

This was the first glimpse I got of Three Island Lake. This lake is also a pretty lake with nice clear water. 

In the distance, out in the water, was a lone loon who was calling out his lonely loon cry.

As I filled the water container up with lake water, I noticed a bunch of pretty yellow Horned Bladderwort flowers growing all around. 

When I brought the water back up to where Carsten was waiting, a group of hikers came by. They were the first ones that we had seen on the whole trip this far. It was a group of 3 couples that were doing the whole trail as a day trip. They asked us where the best place to stop and rest was and we told them that was site number three. 

We stayed for a little bit longer before continuing on to our site. We actually weren't that far away from it. We arrived at site #1 at about 1 pm. The site was cute but it was not without it's issues. . 

It had this interestingly shaped tree that was perfect for sitting in. However, it was a pine and the sap was oozing out of it in places. We remedied this by putting a blanket in a plastic bag and sat on that like a seat cushion. It not only protected our clothes from the sap, but it also made the seat just a little more comfortable. 

You had to go down hill just a bit to get to the lake but it was easy to access. The water was clear and beautiful with no leeches in sight. 

The problem with the site was that there was no place to pitch a tent. All around us were thick ferns and under brush. 

We didn't have a lot of options. So, Carsten pitched his tent right in the middle of the trail. It made it a bit tricky to get to the fire pit and the lake but we managed. 

My tent , on the other hand, was too big to fit in the middle of the trail. We ended up having to cut down some of the ferns and moving some of the dead fall out of the way in order to find a spot that was even remotely suitable for my tent. I was thinking to myself that this would have been a good time to have a hammock tent. Lots of trees and no ground space for a regular tent. 

I have never had a green tent before, but I bought one this year because I had lent my old tent out and never got it back. When I went to get a new one, the only colour they had was green. I am really not that particular on tent colour, but it was interesting to note that in this one instance it did seem to matter. You see, a little grasshopper came for a visit shortly after I put the tent up. And well, this grasshopper seemed to think that my tent was some sort of vegetation and proceeded to try to eat it! I watched it for a few moments (it wasn't trying to eat any vital part of the tent, just an extra flap of material) until it finally realized that this green thing was not edible and it hopped away. Up until this point I had never even considered a green tent to be a potential problem in that sense. 

Once the tents were up we were free to do some exploring. I went to look for a thunder box. There wasn't one. So, once again, we had to create our own.

​Then I went down the hill to the lake to walk the shoreline. There were frogs peeking up at me from just below the surface of the water. 

Close to some bushes, on a rock, I found what is probably the prettiest spider that I have ever seen in person. It was a light bluish-green in colour and was quite big.  I knew from it's shape that it was some sort of Orbweaver spider but I didn't know what kind.  I looked it up when I got home and found out that it is a Giant Lichen Orbweaver spider. 

A little White-throated sparrow came to watch us as we began to make lunch at about 3 pm. 
That was bout the time that a man came by looking for water. He explained that he was with a group of 5 others (his family) and that they were just at what they had thought was site #1 but there was no water access on that site. This comment kind of threw me for a loop because I thought that we were on site # 1.

He had a water filter with him and we told him that he was more than welcome to go down to the lake to get some water  and we apologized for the tent in the middle of the path to the lake. Not long after, his wife came with their dog named Leo. They were going to bring water up to the dog but we suggested that the dog may prefer to go down to the lake instead so that he could get a good drink and maybe even cool off with a swim. They were very happy with this suggestion and I am sure Leo was too because when he got down there he drank, and drank, and drank, like it was going out of style. The poor guy was very thirsty. 

Soon after, their 3 kids came along followed by another adult. They were all very thirsty. They made short work of the water that the man had filtered and so we gave them our filtered water too. Then we set both filters up again and filtered even more water. We filled every jug and water container that they had on them.

While we waited for the water to filter we had time to talk. They told us they were from London and had started the trail from the beginning earlier in the day but had not come across a good water source even once since they started (they had probably travelled about 8 km or more by this point). They were headed to site #3 for the night and then would finish the trail the next day. 
We told them what to expect of the trails ahead and warned them of the leeches in the water at site #3. We talked about how we found this trail to be more difficult than we all had expected. This was the first backpacking trip for the kids and one one the adults was carrying some of their things which put his pack up to about 50 pounds. That's a lot of weight to be carrying. I suggested that they try the Abes and Essens trail in Bon Echo Park next if they were looking for an easier trail to backpack on. 

When all the water jugs were full, they thanked us for everything and continued on to their destination. We wondered how well they fared in the days to come and hoped that they still had fun for the rest of their trip. 

After they left I decided to take a quick walk up the trail in the direction that they came from to determine if indeed that was site number one and if we were perhaps on the wrong site. I climbed up hilly trail for about 5 minutes, maybe less, and came to a rocky area with a large fire pit in the middle. Sure enough, this seemed to be the actual site number one. It had one of those orange placards with the tent symbol on it. But then... what site were we on then? Perhaps it is one that used to be a site and now they are reclaiming? Perhaps someone just built a fire place down there because it was a good place to stop for lunch? 

Whatever the case may be, this site I was standing on now was not a good site. It truly had no access to water. You could probably climb down the rocky hillside to get to the lake if you were lucky enough to not break a leg doing it. But coming back up again was a whole other story. No wonder the family who came by were asking for water. There was definitely none here.  The fire place was in a good spot. But once again, there was no thunder box and no place to pitch a tent unless you wanted to clear away some ferns again. I wasn't about to do that again. We were already settled where we were and it was near the lake. We were not moving. 

When I got back to camp, I went in for a swim. The water was wonderful!  And most importantly... no leeches!  

When I got out of the water I found Carsten examining what I thought was a stick. Turns out it was a n inchworm that was disguising itself as a stick. It was a twig-mimic inchworm. It would stand up perfectly straight for about ten minutes and not move at all. It looked just like it was a part of the branch that it was on. He was a master of camouflage. 

In a way, our campsite was like this little guy. Our campsite is a campsite mimic site!

Another caterpillar that was hanging around was the Confused Woodgrain Moth caterpillar. I liked the pretty pale yellow colour of this one. 

We took a short nap for awhile before supper. At about 6 pm we started to get hungry. Unfortunately, another downfall of our mimic campsite was that the fire pit was way too close to the trees and vegetation near by. It may be on the top of a big rock but we didn't feel comfortable lighting a fire there. Instead we pulled out our little one burner camp stove and boiled water and cooked supper with that. 

As we sat and ate supper, we discussed our plans for the next day. The weather network said it was supposed to start raining at around 1 pm the next day. So we wanted to go to bed early and get up early in hopes of getting off the trail and back to the main campground before then. We figured that we would stop at the look out along the way though. It would be the longest leg of our hike tomorrow. Roughly 7 km. Maybe more. 

At about 7:30 Carsten decided to go to bed. I wanted to stay up for a bit longer to catch the sunset. 

I walked down the hill to the shore of the lake and watched as the sun sank lower and lower behind the tree line. The sky turned to peaches and pinks and the last remaining rays of sunlight jutted out likes spikes through the clouds.  Loons flew by over head and landed in the water as they settled in for the night. When the sun had sank so far behind the trees that I could no longer see it, I made the climb back up the hill towards my tent to get ready for bed. 

When I got to the top of the hill and turned around I was completely surprised.... There was the sun again!  
I had gone far enough up the hill that my perspective of the sun had changed so that it was no longer below the tree line but was up above them again. So, from the top of the hill I got to watch the sun set for a second time in the same day. It's not to often a person can say that. 

At 9:15 pm I got into my tent. Once again it was just in time. Within moments, the swarms of mosquitoes could be heard outside. I could see them through the screen of my tent and they were everywhere. They arrived a half hour earlier here than they had at the other sites. But that was no matter because I was off to sleep; snug in my tent and bug free, thinking about the adventures that would await us tomorrow. 

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. 

   I had been surprised to discover this winter that Halfway Lake had a backpacking trail. It was a park that wasn't too far away from home (only about 2 and a half hour drive) so I immediately went to work making plans to do the 15 km hike on their Hawk Ridge Trail. The plan was to hike the trail backwards and stay on site # 4 the first night, # 3 the second night, and  #1 the third night, with an over night stay in the main campground at site #205 for the final night. A couple weeks before we were to go, the park called me up and asked if I would be willing to change from site #4 to site #5 because they wanted to allow site #4 to remain empty so that nature could reclaim it. Site # 5 was a closer destination, so I had no problem with that. 

   When the long awaited day finally arrived, my mom, my brother, and I left home at about 11 a.m. and a few hours later arrived at a tiny little park office.

   There was a sign saying only one person allowed in the office at a time, which was fine because it was so small that there was not enough room for much more than that anyways. So I got in line and waited my turn. It was a weekend so it was fairly busy that day. 

   When it was my turn I let them know that I was there for  my reservation for the back country trail. They signed me in but they used my license plate number that they had on file, assuming that was the car I had arrived in. However, we had taken my mother's car to the park. When I pointed this out to them, they didn't know how to change it. So, they told me that they would just let the other staff members know and that it wouldn't be a problem. Later on, I just wrote my mother's license plate number down in pen on the permit.

​   Other parks usually ask what colour tent you have and how many are in your party and stuff like that for safety sake. They asked none of that. They only asked me to come back to the office to let them know when we were back. 

     There were no really good maps of the trail. I was relying on the one that they had posted online. Although it was decent enough to use, it did not give any indication of distance. So, I had to do some deductions and come up with my own idea of how far to travel each day.  The website said it was a 15 km trail. So I deduced that half way would be roughly somewhere before  the Look Out. Possibly at the furthest tip. So the first half of the trail would be about 7 to 8  km.  That would mean that there is roughly 2 km between each set of campsites (2 km from the half way mark to #1 , then 2 km from #1 to #2 and 3, then 2 km from # 3 to # 4 and 5, and then 2 km from # 5 to exit). But without any proper information, it was all just guesswork.

   I asked them where the trail started and where the trail ended in the park so that I would know where to find the trail exit (which would be our entrance). The young man, Matt, at the desk said that "it didn't really matter where we started from". I said that yes it did, because we were not going to hike from the beginning of the trail and go most of the way around the trail to number 5 and then go back again to number 3  and 1. That would make no sense and would add huge amounts of extra hiking. He didn't seem to understand what I meant but he pointed out the trail head and the trail exit on a big map on the wall behind him just the same. ​

   We figured out that to do the trail backwards, the best thing to do is to go to the comfort station in the Hawksnest Campground across from site 203, leave your packs there, drive your vehicle up to the parking lot at the trail head on the other end of the park and then, walk back to the comfort station to begin your hike. Of course, if you are backpacking alone then you might not want to leave your stuff unattended at the comfort station. 

   My mom stayed with our  packs while Carsten and I dropped off the car and walked back. While we were at the trail head we took a moment to look at the map they had posted there and we discussed how far we would be travelling each day. 

  We finally began our hike at about 3 pm. When you start the trail backwards you begin at a bridge down by  the beach. It was a nice start to the hike.

But we had only walked less than a minute when we came to our very first obstacle. A downed tree. I was surprised by this since it was so close to the end of the trail. I would have thought that the park staff would have taken care of getting this cut down long before the height of the camping season had begun. 

The trail started out not too bad. There were lots of pines. There were hardly any mosquitoes at all and only a couple of deer flies. But the deer flies got worse as we travelled. They were quite annoying actually. But we were in the height of deer fly season and we were wearing hats, pants and long sleeves so they weren't able to bite us very easily. It was just their presence that was unnerving. 

   About five minutes later, we came to our second downed tree. I was beginning to notice that this trail was not very well taken care of. This part of the trail passes through the  part of the forest that was devastated by the 2002 tornado when mature trees were instantaneously flattened. However, those trees had seen the likes of a chainsaw and had been removed from the trail. These ones were much newer and should have been cleared away by now this late in the season. When we had hiked the Eastern Pines Trail in Algonquin back in May of 2019, the staff were out there with chain saws clearing away the deadfall before the height of the season. But not in this park. This was just the beginning. There were many, many more of these fallen tree obstacles to come. 

   But not all of the trail was full of obstacles. There were some interesting rocky ridges that were open and easy to travel on. 

 And some areas were patterned in patches of deer moss. ​It was at about this point that my mom was having a hard time keeping up. We were only about 45 minutes into our hike when my mom said that she couldn't make it. We told her that we had come at least one kilometer and that there should only be another kilometer to go. We offered to leave a pack behind and come back for it later.  She decided that it would be best for her to turn around and go back to the main campground and get a campsite there for a few days. She didn't want to hold us back. She said that she would be perfectly happy to spend some time alone just reading a book. She would text us at 6pm to let us know what site she was on. We were a bit disappointed but we understood. We said that if it turned out that the campsite was not too far ahead that we would run back for her and let her know. 

And then there were two.....The trail went on and on and there were more and more steep rocky hills. At the top of some we could see the trees far below in the distance.

The trail markers were yellow. They too were an indication of how the trail was not well kept. Many markers were on fallen trees and some of them were not even nailed onto anything. This one was just hanging on a branch waiting to either  fall off in a storm or get knocked off when the branch got broken by a careless hiker.  And this was not a one-off. I saw a number of markers hanging from branches like this throughout the whole trail. 

There were places on the trail where you could clearly see where the tornado had gone through years before.

The further we went the more we knew that my mom had made the right decision. The terrain was getting more difficult and the weather was hot and the packs were feeling heavy. We kept thinking that at some point the trail must start going down hill towards a lake. But it was just up and up and up. 

Much of the time the vegetation was waist high and sometimes shoulder high. It was getting thicker and harder to see the trail. 

   There were many areas that were so overgrown with ferns that you couldn't see your feet as you walked and you certainly couldn't see the trail. We were using our walking sticks to part the underbrush to try to find the trail beneath it. Someone definitely needs to come and do some maintenance on these trails.

​ Do you see a trail here? Yeah, neither do I. 

   Every time we thought we were going to be going down hill, we started going back up again. Twice we could see a lake and we were headed towards it, only to be cruelly directed away from it again. I kept thinking that this seems to be the longest 2 km that I have ever hiked. How is it that we aren't there yet? Did we miss it somehow? We were stopping to rest more and more often and we were both getting tired. 

  Finally we started heading down hill. However, it was so steep that at one point we had to take off our packs and throw them  down over the edge of the rocks and then slide down behind them. 

  Then, to make matters worse, our tarp fell out of the side pocket of my pack and rolled down the side of the hill. Luckily, it didn't go too far and Carsten was able to climb down to it (barely) and rescue it for me. 

Finally we caught our first glimpse of Burnt Ridge Lake which was the lake that site number 5 was situated on. We figured that it couldn't be too far now. At least we hoped so. By this point we were glad that the park had asked us to switch from site 4 to site 5 because we were not sure we would have made it to site 4. 

And there is was! The sign we had been searching for. And of course the sign was upside down and falling off. Would I have expected anything less?  But despite being upside down, it was the sweetest sign to see at that point. 

And to welcome us to our site, we were greeted by the call of a loon. 

It was 6:15 pm . I texted mom to let her know we arrived and she told us that she got the last site in the whole camp (#43) but that she also got #205 for the next few nights after that (which was the site we had reserved for the day that we were coming off the trail).

It had taken us just over 3 hours to go 2 km. I was thinking that it didn't bode well for the rest of the trip if we were travelling that slow. Then, as I looked around the site, I saw it. There was a marker in the tree saying that this was the 11 km mark. That explained everything! We had gone 4 km not 2 km!  My guessing of the map had been wrong. No wonder it felt like forever to get here! 

We were happy to be able to take our packs off and look around. The site was small. There was only a small clear area where the tents could go and we would have to try to fit both of them on it.

 It was probably a good thing that mom turned back because I wasn't sure that there would have been space for a third tent, even though all of our tents were pretty small. 

The fire pit was nicely situated on a flat rocky area by the lake. The perfect spot to watch the sunset later. There were 2 logs beside the fire that you could sit on.  Direct access to water was not the easiest, but not the worst either. 

My mom had  gotten a new water filtering system as a present and we took it on this trip to try it out. At first we thought we weren't going to like it because the plastic was not the same quality as the Platypus that we had been using in the years past. But there are some advantages that this MiniWell system has that we liked

.  For one thing, the water seems to filter a whole lot faster than the Platypus does. Also, it comes with a little jug-like container that has a handle and a lid so that you can carry your clean water with you. This meant that I could bring it into the tent with me at night if I wanted. 

It can be a little tricky to get the seal (which also acts as a handle) onto the top of the dirty water bag. But if you line it up properly with the green lines on the bag and if you don't over fill it, then it just slides on there fairly easy. The clean water section holds only half the amount of water that is in the dirty water section. But it doesn't seem to matter really. Since it filters fast, you can refill the clean water quite quickly. 

Once the tents were up, Carsten set about getting the water set up. I looked for a Thunder box to use. There were none. So, I found a nice log that would do us for a bathroom instead. It wasn't as good as a Thunder box but it would have to do.

Once we were all set up, we had some time to do what we came here to do.....relax and enjoy the nature around us. There were pink flowers growing along the perimeter of the site.

Big orange butterflies were flying and landing everywhere.

A squirrel was munching on some pine cones.

And beautiful red dragonflies were flitting about all over. 

We were happy to see the dragonflies because it meant that maybe there would be fewer of the deer flies that had been plaguing us all day. 

We started a small fire in the firepit. Just enough to burn our garbage. 

When the flames got a little lower we were able to cook our supper and boil some water for coffee and hot chocolate. 

Then we sat and listened to the birds and the frogs as they started their chorus of evening songs. 

We had our food bags up in the tree and we were in our tents by 9:45 pm; just as the first mosquitoes started to arrive. The sounds of the swarms of mosquitoes buzzing outside our doors was something else.  But we were safe inside our tents and drifting off to sleep. It had been a long day and we were both tired. It had been the longest 2 km hike we had ever done!