Forest Fires Force A Change In Plans

It was a very bad year for forest fires in Ontario this year. We have come to expect them in the western provinces every summer, but this year Ontario was hit so bad that they called in back up fire fighters from other provinces, the USA, and Mexico.  Much of the province was on fire all at the same time. As a result, there were fire bans, and in our case the backpacking trail we were supposed to hike in Algonquin Park (Achray Campground) was closed to the public. This meant a last minute change in plans for our trip. So we scrambled to find any last minute places to go backpacking that weren't already reserved and were not in the burn areas. As you can see from the map below, this was no easy task. (Screen Capture of the fires from the Ontario website was taken a week or two after the trip. The grey areas are fires that are no longer burning. Yellow is new fires and orange is active fires. At the time of the trip, most of the grey areas were yellow or orange). 

After a couple days of searching the internet, my sister, Heather, and I decided upon the Abes and Essens Trail in Bon Echo Provincial Park. Southern Ontario, where Bon Echo is located, did not get hit with the fires. At least not to the degree that northern Ontario has. There were still fire restrictions but at least the forest wouldn't be burning all around us. It was one of the few places left to go backpacking without having to drive crazy amounts of hours to get there. So, we phoned and cancelled at Algonquin and reserved our sites on the Abes and Essens Trail. We planned to stay the first night in the campground at Bon Echo Provincial Park and then head out on the trail the next day. 
   We left home at 12:30 pm with all of our gear packed into the car. We knew the general direction to go for the most part and Heather had written down the directions using a pen and paper. But once we got off the main highway and headed south we decided to use the GPS on our phones, or as Heather likes to call it "Lady Google". 
    Fair warning to all, DO NOT TRUST LADY GOOGLE! Every time we turned around Lady Google was trying to lead us off the main highways and down all the back roads. If we had relied solely on her instead of using her as just a bit of a reference, we would have added an extra hour or two to our trip. And for some reason she does not want you to travel down highway 41. So Heather was the navigator and I just drove and let her and Lady Google battle it out. 
    For the most part it was sunny but at one point there was a rain storm with a down pour so heavy that we had to pull off to the side of the road and wait for a bit until it passed. We were the first to pull off the road but we weren't the only ones to do this. About 3 or 4 other cars ahead and behind us did the same. 
   Soon enough we were driving in the sunshine again and we eventually made it to Bon Echo at about 5:30 pm. 

   When we got to the office we were happy to hear that the fire ban had just been lifted! I guess that down pour of rain we had did the trick!
   While we were at the office checking in, we noticed a sign for an Art event being held July 27, 28, and 29 from 10 am to 4 pm. We decided that before we start backpacking the next day, we would go and check that out. We knew that we only had to go about 2 km the first day so we had plenty of time to see the art work before we went.

There are two campground areas in the park. There is the Mazinaw campground and the Hardwood Hills section. We got site 499 in the Hardwood Hills section. It was one of the only sites left when we had reserved it. The road leading to Hardwood Hills is nice and wide but it is also  fairly long and it feels like you are driving forever to get there.  The park has a very "woodsy" feel to it. By that I mean that the underbrush is thicker than at many of the parks I have been to. This makes for great privacy in your campsite. 

    We were amazed to see how big our campsite was. It was huge! We could have had an army of tents on this site! And we had a bathroom just in front of our site. Of course there are pros and cons to this. On the one hand its nice to have a bathroom close by, but on the other hand the bathroom is just an outhouse and when the wind shifted, you could smell it. Luckily the site was so huge and our tent was at the far end of it so we didn't smell it over where our tent was. 

   Once the tent was set up and we had our packs sorted and ready to go for the next day, we ate supper. It is our usual tradition to buy a small pre-cooked chicken to eat for supper on the first night since from then on after we would only be eating dehydrated food. So we had chicken and macaroni salad.
   After supper we took a walk to explore what we could of the campground before it got dark. This park has a number of walk-in sites. We didn't get to see them up close because we didn't want to go traipsing through other people's sites, but we did get a sneak peak as we walked through the designated parking area for those sites.  From what little we could see, they didn't seem all that impressive. 

We located the comfort station . It could use a bit of updating on the inside but it was OK. At least it had a pop machine outside the door.  Heather wanted to come back here later in the evening to take a shower and so that we could get a cold drink form the pop machine. 

​   So we walked back to our campsite and relaxed for a bit and had coffee and hot chocolate. A little later we drove the car back up to the comfort station. The bathroom was very muggy so someone had propped the outer door open. As I waited for Heather to take her shower, I saw a little mouse pop it's head in the door way and take a look at me real quick before it scurried away into the woods. 

 Heather said that the showers were hot....too hot! To the point where she that if she had any children with her she would not let them shower there in case they got scalded. . She said that it got even hotter when anyone flushed the toilets. 

On the way to the car we stopped for a drink at the pop machine. There was one button that we called the "mystery drink". The label on top looked like it could be Brisk Iced Tea. But underneath you could see another label for some sort of Dole fruit juice. Heather took a chance and put her money in and bought the mystery drink. 

And it was a Dole Apple Juice! I never would have guessed. I thought for sure it would be the Brisk Iced Tea. 

   Back at the campsite we played Quirkle for a couple of hours. The night was a bit chilly. We could see our breath. So the mosquitoes were not out, but we were joined by a few other insects like a teeny tiny shad fly.  

And a Robber fly (also known as an Assassin fly).  Of course at the time I hadn't read up on this fly and I thought nothing of it hanging out on my hand. Once I got home and looked it up I found out that  " Robber flies deliver a painful bite, so be careful with them. They don’t “go after” humans, but if you mishandle them, they might bite. Their bite, adapted for their predatory lifestyle, injects digestive enzymes and a painful venom. If one lands on you, don’t slap it — instead, brush it lightly away". Had I known I would probably have been a little more panicky about it being on me. But it never bit me or Heather so all was well. 

It was lights out around 11:30 pm. That's a pretty early night for me, but we were wanting to get a good nights sleep because we were anxious to get started the next morning on the Abes and Essens Trail.