In Search Of Pitch Pines, Porcupines, and Pumpkins

Music coming from the neighbouring campsite at 7:30 in the morning is not how we like to be woken up in the morning. But there it was, pulling us out of our foggy dream state into the harsh reality of the chilly morning air. Not long enough that I couldn't go back to sleep though. And not nearly as loud as the car alarm that went off at 10:00 in the morning.The music was bearable but the car alarm was not. I panicked at first thinking it was my car alarm because mine had been giving me a hard time as of late. But as I grabbed my key fob and clicked the button over and over I soon came to realize that it wasn't my car alarm going off. I almost wish it was because at least then I could turn the never ending assault on our ears off. After a full 2 minutes or so of this incessant noise, someone finally came and turned it off. Well, I am awake now. No going back to sleep. Probably for the best. There was a lot we wanted to do today and it was time to get the day started. 

Before having breakfast, Penny, Carsten and I went for a short walk to see the beach in the daylight.  We walked down the road to the entrance at the far end of the beach and as we did so, we passed site number 321. This was a site that we had passed up the day before in favour of the one we were on now.  Looking closer at it now, we realized that this site would probably have been a better pick. It was quieter, prettier and closer to to the bathrooms. We had passed it over thinking that there was not enough privacy but all in all it had just as much privacy as any of the other sites. 

Even site 323 and 325 looked nice. But we were already settled in where we were and we were not about to pick up and move. 

Behind the bathroom was a little path that led from the road to the beach. 

The beach had a nice little change house. You don't always have a change house available in provincial parks so this was nice to see. 

The beach was sandy, clean, and looked like a good place to swim. Of curse it was too cold at this time of year to do so. 

As we strolled along the waters edge we could see a hawk flying quietly above our head.

At the opposite end of the beach (the end that our campsite was closest to) was the entrance to the pet beach and picnic area. 

It is a nice open area with plenty of room for dogs and people. 

The various picnic tables had little BBQs near by. 

It was a cozy little spot near the edge of the water and shaded by the cedar trees. There were no other people around which made it a pretty peaceful place to sit and do some bird watching. 

The water was very clear and clean and you could see right down to the bottom of the lake. 

There were three trails that I wanted to hike while we were here. One had unique rock formations and a rock shelter, one had a board walk, and one had a very long wooden bridge across an expanse of water. There are many other hiking trails in the park but those were the three that interested me most. Of course we wouldn't have time to hike them all so we chose the Sandstone Island Trail to start with and figured we would figure out the rest from there. 

At the trail head there is a place to pick up an informational brochure and map of the trail. You can borrow the map for the hike and replace it when you are done or you can pay 50 cents to keep it. 

We chose this trail as the first one to hike because it promised to have some interesting rock formations to see. Also, we had read that the park was home to a rare pine tree called a "Pitch Pine". After hiking many hikes through various parks sometimes you feel like one hike is the same as the next. So before we set off I said a little prayer asking God to let us see some interesting wildlife. To please let me see something I had not taken a photo of yet, like maybe a porcupine (which I had wanted to see in the provincial parks for a few years now.... that and a moose). He did not disappoint! The hike was fantastic and almost right away we started seeing the unusual rock formations. This was just the beginning. In particular I was looking forward to the rock shelter that was to come. 

We were amazed to see a tenacious tree growing out of the sides of the rock with no soil to bury it's roots under. Instead, it's roots climbed upwards and reached inside the cracks and crevasses of the rock. 

There were a number of these trees growing from the sides of the rock. At first it looked like the trees were dead and had been blown over by the wind, but with further inspection we noticed that they were very much alive with green leaves growing from their branches. 

We traveled a nicely groomed path under the cedars. We were on the look out for the Pitch Pine the whole way. ​ We were hoping to spot one on this trail, however, we really weren't sure what we were looking for exactly. 

A section of the trail opens up so that you can see the lake and the docks of the boat launch area. 

There were signs that a beaver had been here a long time ago.

Some of the trees had bark that was raised in a braided pattern. We wondered if these might be Pitch Pines. But as we found out after some research when we got home that they were not. 

From time to time along the trail we would come to metal posts with numbers on them. These places were where we could stop to read the information provided in the brochure we had picked up at the trail head. 

We read in the brochure that some of the rocks in front of us were about 43 million years old. I went up and touched the rocks and then came back down and said to Carsten with a chuckle, "I just touched something that was 43 million years old!" 

Soon we were climbing some rock steps up to a weathered, carved out section of rock wall, with an over hanging rock ledge.

This is the remains of  Paleozoic Seas.

This carved out section of rock ran for quite some distance. 

Finally it came to where the rock shelter was. This was a place where over the course of history many first nations people, as well as explorers have taken refuge from storms. There have been old artifacts found here such as arrowheads and musket balls. 

There is one place where the rock looks almost like the foundation of a square building perched upon a cliff of boulders. And yet the whole thing is naturally made and not man made. 

Then we came to an area that had a little cave. All around the outside and up inside the mouth of the cave were large amounts of porcupine scat. My excitement mounted as I looked all around and shone a light inside to see if my prayers were answered. Was there a porcupine holed up inside here?  I was disappointed to find that there wasn't. At least not at this time. But it was clear that a porcupine does frequent here quite often. There weren't any porcupines  in the near by trees either. 

A little further on we came across a larger cave. It wasn't big enough to stand up in, but by crouching down I could still go inside. And so I did. 

Inside was plenty more porcupine scat, and a little birds nest built into the side of the rock wall. 

I spent a minute or two inside looking around before I came back out to where Carsten and Penny were waiting for me. 

We continued on and came across a large red and black centipede crossing the path in the morning sunlight. 

Once again we saw trees that were clinging for dear life to the side of the rock face. These trees had no intention of ever giving up. 

The way the trees were growing here was just as interesting as the rock formations. But still we did not see any Pitch Pines. 

It was interesting to see all the different types of layers in the rock walls. 

Some layers had some marbling effects.

Other layers had chunks of quartz embedded in it that looked like rows of teeth. 

Next we came to a towering formation of rock that was curved and in the shape of a semi-circle as though a giant pipe had been split in half and left standing. Reading the brochure, we discovered that this formation is all that is left of an ancient waterfalls that has long since dried up. 

In another place we looked way up above us through the branches of the trees to see a large, flat, platform of rock jutting out over the edge of the cliff like someone had taken a stone table top and laid it across two rock structures. 

All around us were beautiful rocks, trees, birds, flowers and insects like this Hickory Tussock Caterpillar. As beautiful as this caterpillar is, you should remember never to touch one. This caterpillar can leave behind venom that can cause a rash similar to that caused by nettles or poison ivy. Symptoms can range from slight reddening of the skin to a burning sensation with swelling and pain. Some people may experience an allergic reaction which could include nausea.

The woods were filled with Goldenrod flowers.

We came to the Lookout where there were two little benches.  The Lookout was a little overgrown but you could still see some of the lake through the trees. We sat in the benches for a rest for a bit. Carsten said that he thought he could hear a porcupine chewing way up in the pine tree above our head, but I never saw one. Nor did we see any Pitch Pines here. 

The brochure talked about the marks that were made in the rock when the glaciers had pushed through this area. The marks reminded me of birch bark.

I managed to get a quick pic of a Hairy Woodpecker flitting from tree to tree in search of an insect meal. 

Nearer to the end of the trail we reached number 12 on the brochure. The interesting rock formations were long behind us and we had walked quite awhile at this point without seeing much to catch our eye so we were happy to stand here and listen while Penny read aloud from the brochure about how this was the remains of the foundation of an old homestead. As we stood there listening I just happened to look up into the trees above us. 

And lo and behold there was a juvenile porcupine sitting in the tree above us!  Prayers answered! 
By now I had given up on seeing a porcupine because we were no where near the rock caves with the porcupine scat. So seeing this little guy hanging out up in the tree made my heart smile. 

The porcupine wasn't the last bit of wildlife we saw before finishing the trail. We came across a Woolly Bear caterpillar. 

And we saw a garter snake dashing off through the leaves to the safety of  a fallen tree. 

We had spent 2 hours on this very enjoyable hike. This was a really good trail and we highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in unique rock formations. 

We headed back to camp and had a quick bite to eat for lunch. While we rested we saw yet another Hickory Tussock Caterpillar crawling across the top of Carsten's car. The insect world is getting ready for winter. 

After lunch we knew we had a few hours left before we were to make the drive to Upper Canada Village to go see Pumpkin Inferno later on that night. We didn't have time to hike the 10 km Tallow Rock Trail with the long bridge. But we did figure we could tackle the Quiddity Lookout Trail which was only 2.5 km. It was a boardwalk trail and I love boardwalk trails so I was eager to go. Besides who wouldn't want to hike a trail with a name like "Quiddity". 

Before starting the Quiddity Trail we decided to make a pit stop at the bathroom so that we didn't have to rush back part way through. Penny went in one side of the outhouse and I went in the other. Looks like Penny got the better of the two sides because mine had a very large wolf spider situated on the wall right beside the toilet seat.  Now I am not completely afraid of spiders. I am usually OK with them as long as they aren't on me. But this one is bigger than what I am usually comfortable with and I know that wolf spiders can jump if they want to. Nevertheless  decided to swallow my uneasiness and take a chance and sit down with that spider right beside me. 

I never took my eyes off of it the whole time. I slowly sat down and had visions of this spider making a sudden move which would cause me to jump up screaming and dribble pee all over the floor. But luckily it never moved. I probably never peed so fast in my life, mind you. I got out of there as quickly as possible and patted myself on the back for facing my fears and living to tell the tale. 

With that out of the way we began our journey down the boardwalk of Quiddity Trail.

The boardwalk itself was nice looking enough but apparently it didn't hold a whole lot of weight. There was a sign posted saying that there was a maximum of 4 people per span. 

By span they mean that they had painted yellow lines on the bridge and that only 4 people could go between the lines at one time. 

For a boardwalk hike I was kind of expecting more. Maybe it was just the time of year but there wasn't all that much to see. There were no birds or nice flowers really. The scenery was nice enough I guess but not spectacular. 

We were lucky enough to catch sight of a Ribbon snake though. 

Ribbon snakes like to be near the water because much of their diet consists of frogs. That was one thing we did see quite a bit of here, was frogs. 

There were a few Meadow Hawk dragonflies flying around as well. 

Quiddity Trail is an off-shoot trail from Tallow Rock Bay Trail. Make a wrong turn here and you will be doing the 10 km hike instead of the 2.5 km hike. 

It's a nice trail; wide and easy going. A partridge came flying out at us from the bush but disappeared before we could get a picture of it. 

After the hiking through the woods for a short bit we came to another bridge but it was only a tiny little foot bridge. 

At the edge of the foot bridge you could see across the lake though. There was quite a bit of green aquatic plants of some sort growing on the surface of the water. 

Way off in the distance you could see a bunch of Canadian Geese searching for fish and things to eat in the weeds. 

We reached the top of the Quiddity Lookout which was the end of the like for this hike. The trail is not a loop so we had to turn around and walk back the way we came. 

We never did find a Pitch Pine anywhere we looked int he park. But we did see some interesting trees, nonetheless.  It's a shame that they mention there is a rare tree in the park but don't state where you can find them. I suppose if we had asked one of the rangers they could have told us, but we didn't think to do that. 

On the way back to the entrance of the trail we stopped again at the boardwalk hoping to see something of interest. 

All we saw were frogs. Lots and lots of frogs. there were noses here and eyes peeking out there. It became a game for us to see how many frogs we could find. We figured it was like playing "Where's Waldo" except we were playing "Where's Frogo".  

We got back to our campsite with just enough time to have a quick supper before we piled into the car and made the one hour drive to Upper Canada Village to see the Pumpkin Inferno. 

The display of all the pumpkins lit up in the darkness in various shapes was a sight to see.  It was really worth the visit and we really enjoyed it. 

We got back tot he campsite at about 11 p.m.  Before heading to bed we took a quick walk down tot he beach to see the stars. The stars were very bright in the sky and it was refreshing to be able to see them with clarity since they are not as beautiful when you are in the city. At one point we saw a shooting star. 

I tried three times to call for a Barred Owl but was met with only a response of the geese calling and the sound of fish jumping, so I gave up. It was getting chilly now and we were starting to be able to see our breath so we called it a night and headed for bed. It had been such a wonderful day and we all went to bed as happy campers.