Lake Superior Has A Way Of Dealing With Overconfidence

I had the perfect sleep the night before and now we were waking up to a beautiful, sunny morning. It was not too cold or hot, and not too buggy. We couldn't ask for a better day for hiking! 

A pair of crows made their calls back and forth to each other. They were loud enough that it made sure we were awake by 8:15 a.m. 

We had a long way to go to get to Mermaid Lagoon today.  The chart that the park office had given us said that from Sand Spit to Mermaid lagoon was 8.3 km    We got packed up and left the Sand Spit campsite at about 9:30 a.m. 

On  the way to Mermaid Lagoon we would be passing by  the Beatty campsites as well as the Buckshot camp sites.  From Sand Spit to Beatty the trail was relatively easy going. We stuck together for the first little while. 

All of a sudden Heather, who was in the lead, stopped dead in her tracks. I wondered if she had seen a moose like we had seen on our Algonquin trip.  But soon I realized that it was something much smaller. It was a family of Spruce Grouse. 

It was a mother and her brood of babies.  I only managed to get a couple photos of the mother before they all took off in different directions. And of course, Spruce Grouse are masters of camouflage so, once they hid themselves, I could no longer find them. But that's ok. We couldn't stand around all day.. We had to get going. 

This part of the trail went mainly through the woods, but even in the woods, you couldn't escape climbing over boulders. In some ways it felt a bit like hiking in Killarney on the La Cloche Trail..  Since we had done that before and survived, we figured we had this trail well in-hand.  By the end of the day, we found out exactly how wrong we were about that. Lake Superior has a way of dealing with overconfidence. 

From Sand Spit to the first Beatty Cove site (of 4) it was about 2.3 km according to my pedometer. 

We stopped here for a quick rest and a bathroom break. 

The first site was decent in size and had two areas where tents could be put up. 

Carsten came back from the Thunder Box and told us how it felt like a scene out of a horror movie.  And sure enough, when I went to check it out, it was exactly as he described.  He said "Imagine you are walking down a creepy road with creepy trees on either side of you..." 

"And then, out of no where, a creepy old toilet appears  right in the middle of the road!"  I had to laugh because it was definitely reminiscent of a horror movie where something fairly innocent is made to be creepy looking and put in a spot that is completely out of place. 

The woods in this section reminded me of a childhood Berenstain Bears book called "The Spooky Old Tree"  

Not only because the trees were creepy, but because there were also bear tracks on the beach.   I wasn't too concerned though. The tracks were old and I was sure that he was long gone buy now. 

A creek cut through the stones along the beach from the tree line to the lake. We saw a few of these over the course of our trip. 

Since we were passing through and we knew that we would be staying at one of the Beatty Cove campsites on the way back, we decided to check out each of them while we passed by.  We wanted to see which one was our favourite. So we stopped for a minute or so at Beatty Cove site #2.

This one was pretty good.  But not the one liked best. 

Site number 3 was the one we liked the best.  It was big and had a good balance of open space and shade. Other people seemed to like it too. Someone left behind a little broom and dustpan hanging in the tree and a towel as well. There were a few other things, like an old ball and a welcome mat,  left behind that let you know that people seemed to use this site a lot. 

Heather and Carsten pointed out a couple other things that we liked about the site. 

There was a bear bin nearby which you shared with the other sites. 

And there was an actual l bathroom on this site!  When I first saw it, I was amazed. And then I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  Not because I didn't think that a port-a-potty in the woods wasn't a luxury, but because I was just picturing an out house full of cobwebs, spiders, and other creepy crawlies. 

But aside from the door latch not wanting to stay closed, and a broom that had seen much better days, it was actually not too bad and not quite as creepy as I first thought. 

The site itself was quite spacious and could easily fit a large tent or multiple tents. 

As we went further down the beach we noticed that there was another bear bin. So perhaps there was one for  each site instead of having to share one with the other sites. 

The final site of Beatty cove was also nice.  Really there wasn't  a bad site on Beatty Cove at all. I could see how this would be a popular destination on the trail, as I had read on a website. 

However, none of the Beatty Cove sites were as nice as the Sand Spit site we had just stayed at.

From the Beatty Cove sites, Heather decided to take off ahead of us for awhile since she liked to travel faster than Carsten and I do.  We told Heather that we would meet her at the first Buckshot campsite for lunch. 

We liked to take it slower so that we can stop to smell the flowers, so to speak.  Apparently the wild roses were also a flower that the flies like to stop to smell as well. 

Once again we came out of the woods and onto the rocky shores of the Coastal Trail.  We looked behind us and saw how far we had come. We could see the other points and coves in the distance. 

We  caught site of a loon enjoying the afternoon sun out on the lake. 

Next we came to one of my favourite  spots on the trail.  It wasn't a campsite, it was just an interesting place where a large creek ran from the woods to the lake.  Only, this creek was wide enough that you couldn't easily cross it. You had to look carefully for spots where the piles of dry gravel were close enough to the other side of the creek that you could jump across.  Sounds easy enough, but add to it that when you stood on the rocks for too long they tended to sink into the water under your feet, it made it a bit more challenging. 

We laughed as we jumped from one seemingly dry patch to another.   We made it across the creek without falling in and without getting our feet too wet. 

Once we got to the other side, there was another section of the creek that ran right under the rocks all together and came out on the other side, making a land bridge for us.  Water will always find the path of least resistance and I guess these rocks were just not  gonna keep it from getting to where it wanted to go. 

At 12:40 p.m. we arrived at Buckshot campsite number 4 and met up with Heather for lunch.  We were surprised to see a grave site made of stones and sticks on the beach in front of the site.  At first we thought maybe someone's dog had died here.  But then when we saw that there were a pair of socks sticking out of the end, we knew that this was someone's idea of a joke. 

It was even funnier when later on we found a single shoe with fake blood on it not so far away from the grave site.  It seemed to be someone's statement piece about how difficult the trail was.  We got a good chuckle out of it. 

It was 2.53 km to get from the Beatty sites to Buckshot site number 4 (For some reason the Buckshot sites were numbered backwards compared to the previous ones we had been on, so 4 was actually the first site from this direction).  So,  we had traveled almost 5 km in 3 hours so far. Not too bad considering the amount of boulders we were climbing over.

We took off our packs and sat down for a much needed rest. 

I got some water from the lake and we let it filter while we ate lunch so that we were able to refill our water bottles again before we left. 

While I sat, a little Snipe Fly, with it's lacey looking wings, stopped by for a visit. 

After lunch, Heather left first. As usual, she wanted to get a head start.  I needed to use the bathroom and I wasn't quite ready to go yet so Carsten stayed behind with me.  

Once Carsten and I did finally get going we ended up missing the trail marker that led into the woods and we followed the shoreline a lot farther than we were supposed to. We had to back track to find it once we realized we had gone too far.  By this time Heather was a good 45 minutes or so ahead of us. We finally got onto the proper trail and got going at about 2 pm.  We didn't know it yet, but this was the beginning of where things started to go wrong. 

We stopped briefly to check out Buckshot site # 3. 

This site had a large fire pit and space on both sides of the firepit for tents. 

There is a bench makeshift bench made of driftwood on the shore at the entrance to Buckshot number 3.  It was here that we met a mother daughter duo who were traveling in the opposite direction. We stopped to chat with them for a moment or two before continuing on. 

 We started to see Tiger Swallowtail butterflies here and there. 

We also started to see piles of deer poop.  I had to laugh when Carsten said "Now we know why they call this area Buckshot!"  

This leg of the trail was quite lovely but a lot of it was uphill.  We eventually came to another creek. 

But this time we had a bridge to cross it instead of having to jump it. 

Up on the top of a big rocky hill we saw another garter snake. This one was quite large. 

He actually stayed still for a bit while i took his picture. He probably thought if he didn't move we wouldn't see him. 

We came to a rather large hill that we had to climb. It was tiring not only because hills already take the energy from you but also because it was hot and we had been traveling for quite awhile already. 

But the view from the top of the hill made it worth the climb.  We stopped for a rest up here. Down below we could see the Buckshot site number 1.  (Somehow we had gotten distracted and missed site number 2 while we had been talking to the mother and daughter). 

That was when I noticed that I had lost my pedometer.  Carsten offered to go back to see if he could find it for me. So, he took off his pack and walked back while I waited. 

He went back as far as where we had seen the snake but he never found it. I suspect that I had lost it shortly after we had stopped to talk with the mother and daughter though, which was way way back there. So, it was completely lost and we never did find it again.  I was a bit disappointed because this next leg of the trail I really would have liked to have known how far we had traveled. This was the longest day of the whole trip. 

We continued on and went down the other side of the hill. As we neared the bottom of the hill we saw our first ever squirrel on the whole trip. So they did have squirrels here after all! 

At the bottom of the hill was Buckshot number 1. It was about  1 km away from the other 3 Buckshot sites.  Most likely this site was used mainly by canoers. 

This site was beautiful!  It had wide open spaces under the cedar trees and it had plenty of space. It's only downfall was that you had to climb a hill if you wanted to use the bathroom.  

But we didn't stay long. We were anxious to get going.  Mermaid Lagoon should only be about another  2 or 3 km from here. 

But from here on out the trail started to become more and more rough. 

And more importantly, the trail markers were becoming increasingly more difficult to find. Sometimes they were nonexistent or just hidden in obscure places.  But to be fair the park does give you warning in both the park brochure and on large signs when you enter the trail that the trail is not well marked. However, we were not prepared for how unwell marked it would be. 

We were constantly climbing over rocks along the shoreline. 

And climbing over rocks in the tree line. It was rocks rocks everywhere and I was thankful that I had a good pair of hiking boots. But even with a good pair of hiking boots, it takes a toll on your feet and legs. 

At least once in awhile we would get a beautiful view at the top of a hill. 

But mostly it was boulder fields. 

And steep climbs. 

At one point we came to a sign post that said we could go straight or we could take a detour to climb up yet another hill to a look out.. I said to Carsten, "Now who would have the energy to want to climb up there  to go see a look out at this point in the trail?"  I am sure there are others who would, but we were almost exhausted by this point and we were not going to attempt it. 

We went through a craggy area where large rock formations loomed above our heads. 

And then we came to a point where we had to make a steep climb down. We would not have made it down safely with our packs on. So we took them off and threw them down and then climbed down after them. Carsten went first. 

To make matters worse, not only did we have to take our packs off to get down, but we also had to shimmy under a log to do it!    We were not looking forward to having to go back up this section on the way back. We were not even sure how we were going to get our packs back up here. We would probably need some rope. But that was a future us problem. 

Around this point we got in touch with Heather on the walkie talkie to see how she was and where she was.  We had figured that she was at Mermaid Lagoon by now. 

Oh but she was not.... Far from it actually.   Cartsen and I had made it to a cove but here we had lost the trail. So we asked Heather on the walkie talkie where we should go from here since she had already come this way.  She sounded tired as she explained how we should look for a cliff and some cedar trees and the trail was hidden in there with no markers to guide us.   That  was becoming par for the course at this point. 

We decided that since we were at the lake, we would stop and filter more water for our water bottles that were almost empty again. We had probably been travelling about 2 or 3 hours by now which would make it around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. 

While we were resting and talking to Heather on the walkie talkies we were completely and utterly shocked to see Heather coming out of the bush, not in front of us, but.....behind us!   Ok what !?!?   
Even more shocked was Heather.  She had somehow come around in a complete circle.  She was baffled and exhausted and angry that she had wasted so much time going in a giant circle!  And understandably so. 

We rested for a bit while we got water and I took some time to watch a snail in the lake while we figured out our next steps.  But the whole time Heather just kept saying that she didn't understand how this happened. We all joked that maybe she went through a time warp.  

But all jokes aside, we had to figure out how to get out of here and how to get to Mermaid Lagoon. I told them that if we went in one big circle again and ended up back here like Heather did then we were just going to camp here for the night because we would be near water and we were just getting too tired.  

Heather was very reluctant to have to end up back here again and Carsten and I could kind of understand why, but it wasn't until the next day when we saw the tail that Heather had taken that we fully comprehended why Heather would dread having to end up back here so much. It wasn't the destination of here , it was the journey to get here.  I suggested that we get out the compass so that we would be sure to be going in the right direction and not go in a big circle.

Heather began to show us the hidden trail she had taken and we followed her. Eventually we got to a spot where we had a choice to make. We could either go straight and follow the trail into the woods, or we could climb some rocks to our left and get to a cairn marker that I could see at the top. We really didn't want to have to climb since it wasn't an easy climb, but we knew that it was definitely in the direction we were supposed to go in. 

So we climbed up and it turned out to be the right decision.  We had found the path again. At least for a little bit anyways. 

But that wouldn't last long.  We had now arrived at a spot that was the absolute worst section of the trail that we had been on so far. Not because of the terrain. We were accepting of the fact that the Coastal Trail was mostly a rock climb. No, it was more the lack of trail markers that was the problem. 

We were now out in the open with little to no shade. So the sun was beating down on us and it was hot.  Very hot. And we were exhausted and unsure of our way.  This made for a very cranky group of people. And now we had to find our way through a maze of unknown possible paths. 

So since there were not many trees here, much of the trail markers were made of piles of rock cairns. The problem with this is that not everyone who does these trails knows what cairns are. Some people think they are inukshuks an think they are decorations and want to build their own.  Well, that means we were finding cairns that weren't actually cairns.  Other people think that these are inukshuks made by people who aren't First Nation people and they deem it "culture appropriation" and they knock them over.  So in a horizon of nothing but rocks these knocked over piles are just another bunch of meaningless rocks. 

​Both of these scenarios can be  very dangerous for the rest of us coming up the trails behind. Because if we can't  find the trail then we have a major problem.  And it took no time at all for us to lose the trail.....over and over and over again. 

Together we started looking for the right trail. Heather was better at finding the right cairns than we were. The problem was that Heather was constantly going ahead of us so that we couldn't see her. Or when we could see her, we didn't know how she got to where she was. There were huge crevasses we had to find our way across.  

At one point, Carsten and I had seen a cairn way up at the top of a hill. So we climbed all the way up only to find that it ended up as a dead end and at a cliff that had a sheer drop about a good 100 to 200 feet to the bottom. There was zero way anyone was going down this. Had we known this, we never would have made the climb up. We  were too sore to be making extra climbs that weren't needed. 

So, we called out to Heather to help us find the way. She had found a marker at the bottom of the hill instead of at the top. She was frustrated that we weren't finding the trail as easily as she was. So she started yelling at us. Knowing the mental state of all of us I tried to just ignore the tone and go with the information. 

But it all unraveled when we got to yet another wide cavern to cross. At this point we had to take out packs off and drop them down and climb down and then put our packs back on.  However, since I was carrying the water filter Heather was worried that if I threw my pack that it would get damaged and she insisted that I take it out of the pack before throwing it. Now this made thigs worse for me because now the water filter was no longer safely bundled up in the protection of the soft clothes and things I had wrapped around it. It was now in my hand and able to be banged into things while I tried to carry it down with me as I climbed. So I called to Heather to come and take it while I climbed down. She shouted back to me "There is no way I am coming all the way back to get it!  I don't want to go backwards, only forwards!"  This made me mad because I am now kind of stuck trying to get across without damaging it and it would have been safer in the pack.  So I called Carsten and asked him to come and get it and I put it on my walking stick and passed it over the crevasse to him. He proceeded to carry it in his hand from then on. 

It wasn't long before we got to yet another place where we couldn't see where the trail was and Heather was ahead and we didn't know how she go there. So naturally we called out and said "How did you get there"" 
She snapped some sort of remark and that was the last straw for me. I lost it  and screamed at her "JUST STOP!  YOU NEED TO STAY WITH US!!"  Of course this resulted in a screaming match and it wasn't long before Carsten had also had enough and was screaming at her too "COME AND GET THIS PLATYPUS!  IT'S YOURS AND I AM NOT CARRYING IT ANYMORE!" 

Next thing you know, Heather was telling us that she was leaving us. And we said "FINE!"   and she said "WELL I HAVE THE WATER FILTER!"  . To which Carsten replied "WELL I HAVE A LIFE STRAW AND WE CAN BOIL WATER!"  (Heather still had my life straw from when we traded a couple days earlier but I was all for boiling water if I had to at this point). Heather yells "WELL I HAVE THE TENT!"  and I yelled back "WELL I HAVE AN EMERGENCY TENT!" Then Heather yells "WELL I DROVE US HERE AND YOU CAN FIND YOUR OWN RIDE BACK HOME"  thinking she would sway us to follow her. But it didn't work. With all 3 of us yelling "FINE!"  "YEAH FINE!"  "FINE!"  we parted ways. Heather went one way and Carsten and I carried on forward. 

By now it is about 6 pm and we no longer had Heather to find the way for us. We were on our own. But our anger from the fight made us all that more determined to get to Mermaid Lagoon.  Carsten and I still got lost a couple more times but we did eventually make it out of that nightmare of an area. I told Carsten that "This is a real world outdoor Escape Room!" 

We kept coming to cove after cove, thinking that Mermaid Lagoon couldn't be much further. Maybe it's the next cove away.  (It was actually about 4 coves away from where we parted ways with Heather).  We stopped at one cove along the way where there was a bit of shade to take a much needed break. 

As we sat there I just listened to the sound of the waves lapping up against the stones on the shore and kept thinking about the argument with Heather. As I sat I could have sworn I heard Heather saying  "Miserable $@!%'s"  I looked up ahead at the tree line where our trail was leading and I had a feeling of being watched. I figured it wouldn't surprise me if Heather had found an easier route and was now ahead of us. After all, Carsten and I did get lost a couple more times before ending up here. So it was totally possible. But we were too mad to make any contact with her right now. I figured we could hash it out if she made it to Mermaid Lagoon before us and we found her there. Right now I just wanted to rest a moment. I just kept thinking that Mermaid Lagoon better be worth it!  And at this rate, there better damn well be mermaids there! 

Finally we saw the sweet sweet sight of the orange Mermaid Lagoon campsite sign.  

Heather was not here.  And there were no mermaids. And it really wasn't worth what we went through to get here in our opinion. It was now 8:15 pm and  it had taken us 11 hours to get here. Who knows how many kilometers we had travelled.... since losing the pedometer we had no clue. I can tell you this, it was way more than 8.3 km though. 

The site was the same set up as most of the others. But one of the logs beside the firepit was no good as a seat or anything else. It was too wobbly to sit on and even putting any of your gear or even so much as a cup on it, resulted in that item ending up on the ground. 

Despite it being after 8 pm, the sun was still out and that gave us time to set up and to look around. The view from the beach was still a pretty one. 

Between the shore and the campsite was a bear bin. That was a welcome sight. It meant we didn't have to find a tree to put our food up in and that was one less thing to worry about. 

The inside of the bear bin wasn't lovely. It had a left over rain poncho and a pair of crocs and a bag of trail mix in it that someone had left behind. 

The bathroom was a bit tricky to get to. You had to go down a trail and climb over logs and rocks to get to it. 

And when I did finally find it, there was someone's garbage left strewn all over the ground all around it. I am assuming someone thought it would be ok to leave their garbage in the toilet and an animal had probably gotten at it.  Not that that is ok because it isn't but it was a preferable thought to someone just leaving it lying all over the ground  just everywhere. 

After a while we noticed that we were starting to lose sunlight and that we had better started preparing for the night.  I wondered how Heather was doing and if she was safe. So I picked up the walkie talkie and started calling her on it about every 15 minutes. There was never any response though. 

Carsten took out his Life Straw and started to check it out to see how it works. We had never had to use one before. It worked good but we figured it might be better to just boil a bunch of water instead. 

Carsten got his tent set up over in a nice little nook. 

And I got about to setting up my emergency tent.  So a couple things about the emergency tent.  It says it is big enough for two. I suppose it is.... if the people aren't too big, aren't moving around much and have no gear. Also, it  has no doors. It's just a big tube of shiney material that you run a string through and then tie each end to some trees. Then you use some rocks to hold down the corners to make a triangle shape. Since it had no doors, I decided to McGyver it by taking out my emergency blanket, cutting it in half, taking a bit of duct tape that I had in my first aid kit and attaching the orange ends to both ends of the tent. Voila! my emergency tent now had doors!  (Remind me that I need to buy a new emergency tent and blanket). 

It wasn't pretty to look at and it was a bit cramped but it would do. 

We now started to get to the task of boiling water. We went down to the lake to scoop up some water in one of our red plastic dry bags so that we didn't have to keep going back and forth.  While we were down there we saw a beaver swimming around and chasing the fish that were jump up out of the water in the twilight.  This was the closest thing we were going to see to a mermaid here. 

The sun was starting to set and the moon was coming out. It was lovely but  we were too tired to enjoy it. We hadn't even eaten supper yet. 

We set about building a fire. It took some time to get it hot enough to boil water.  All we had to boil water in was one small pot and one metal cup. Then the water had to be cooled so that it could be put into our plastic containers without cracking them.

Turns out it was the cooling down of the water that took the most time and held us up in our progress. We couldn't remember how long to boil the water for. Carsten asked if it was one minute or five. To be safe we did five. He would take out his phone and start the timer. And so we did the slow process of boiling water by lamp light. It took a really long time. Longer than we had anticipated. 

Eventually we had enough water for supper and to get most of our water bottles filled. We figured we would do more tomorrow. Perhaps with the Life Straw it would be faster (hint.... it's much faster!) 

Still no response form Heather over the walkie talkie. Not surprising really. With the height of the hills and all the trees between us the walkie talkies don't get a good signal when you are too far away from each other. Just before bed I said "Good night Heather! I hope you are safe! I am turning the walkie talkie off now" just in case she could hear us and was just not responding because she was still mad. And then I turned it off for the night to conserve batteries. 

At about 11 pm we were ready for bed. We were wiped right out. I could hear the creek babbling near by and it was a comforting sound. My legs were so sore that I couldn't put one leg on top of the other when I lay on my side because they just ached too much. I was comfortable inside the emergency tent but I had trouble getting to sleep for two reasons. 

The first was worrying about Heather. Did she make it to a campsite? Was she in a make shift campsite somewhere because she couldn't make it back?  Did she make it over the rocks ok? She is allergic to hornets so did she get stung?  All these thoughts. 

Second was because although I was warm, my body was shivering. Looks like I had some symptoms of heat exhaustion. The next day Carsten said he had the same thing happen to him when he tried to go to sleep.  I mentally told myself to relax and calm down and after awhile I finally fell asleep. 

What a day. What an adventure. And we weren't even done yet. Tomorrow we had to find our way back and find Heather!