Through Rain Or Shine Or Floods Or Snow

It had been another cold night. It still wasn't "Pukaskwa Cold" but it was cold enough to make me wish I had opted for the heavier, warmer, sleeping bag. But I chose light weight over comfort and now I was paying the price. 
    There was a mist in the air but it wasn't raining. At least not yet. We didn't start a fire because we knew this was not a normal spot for camping and we didn't want to be responsible for a possible fire getting out of control with no one coming by to see to it. 

We packed up and got ready to leave. Mom had gotten up early and left ahead of us. She wanted to get a head start since she knew we would all eventually catch up to her. She left at about 8 a.m. Carsten and I left about an hour later with the rest of them following behind about 40 minutes after that. It was still Boulder Garden for quite some time in this section of the trail.

We picked out way around the boulders and over the dead fall. 

Even a Boulder Garden can be beautiful though. Some boulders were completely covered in ferns. It gave it an even more "garden" feel to it. 

There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground in places. It was a reminder that it was still spring time and that this was not the normal time to be backpacking and perhaps we were a little bit crazy. But if we were crazy, then we were not the only ones. We had been hiking for about 2 hours when we ran into a school group of about 20 kids. They had been camping out the past few nights  too. So if we were crazy then so were they. 
    One of the teachers who was with the kids told us that the 3rd and 4th site in the group of sites we were heading to (Stratton Lake section) was the best of the sites in that section. We warned them that they were about to enter the Boulder Garden. We chatted for a bit and then headed on. 

We were now in a section of the woods where the deer frequented. How did we know? There were deer droppings every where....and I mean everywhere!  Both on the trail and along side the trail. Mostly on the trail though.  It was a full kilometer or more of deer droppings about every 20 feet. (I actually started counting foot steps between piles after awhile because I was curious). It was still just me and Carsten together at this point. I was in front and he was behind me. So I acted as look out and was constantly saying "Don't step there" or "Deer Poop!" or "More poop!"  It was like we were traveling down the deer's personal bathroom. 

Eventually the trail of poop stopped and instead it became the trail of water. Most of the time we walked alongside of the trail at this point because it was too wet to walk on the trail.  It was about here that Heather, Devin and Jo-Jo  caught up to us and passed us. 

A few minutes later we stopped in our tracks.....
What had once been a very wet trail had now turned into a mini lake! Skirting along the side of the trail was now no longer an option. We had to go way off the beaten path to get around this flooded section of the trail. We could hear Heather up in the distance and we could hear mom too so we knew they had caught up with her. We knew they were probably talking about the amount of water they had just walked around. 

Carsten and I bush wacked our way towards the voices and it wasn't long before we caught up to the group. We had been hiking for about 2 hours and it had been raining most of the way. We were all ready for a break so we stopped along the waters edge where the trail splits off towards High Falls and made some coffee. 

As we ate our snacks and drank coffee we asked each other "why didn't the group of kids mention this large section of water we had to make our way around?"  And the couple the day before had only said "You might get your feet wet near High Falls".  That was a bit of an understatement.  Actually, we had managed to keep our feet fairly dry despite the amount of water around. I am pretty happy with how water resistant my hiking boots are. 
    We may have been sitting beside a giant puddle in the woods, but the birds were singing and it was still an enjoyable hike. 

When our break was over mom left before we did again to get a head start. Carsten and I were last to leave. There was one more really wet area to cross and then we were on our way up to higher ground where it was a bit more dry (except for the rain of course). 

Once again I marveled at how beautiful the spring trees could be with their white and beige leaves. 

The trail had even more dead fall on it.  There is an unusually high amount of dead fall on this trail. But none of it was too daunting. 

We came across a few more areas of water, but this time there were bridges over them. 

Carsten and I caught up to mom where the side trail begins for the next section of campsites on Stratton Lake. Heather, Devin and Jo-Jo had long since passed her and were probably already at the campsite. There are 5 campsites in this section and we were heading for either the 3rd or 4th one. At about this point the sun was finally starting to come out. 

We hadn't really looked at the map so we didn't know at first how far the first campsite was from all the others. So when we couldn't find the second campsite right away we got worried that we had gone the wrong way. We were also pretty tired by this point. So we stopped  for a rest for the second time and took out the map to figure out where we were.  

We followed a path that was right along the water's edge the whole way. Apparently this path is not one that is actually on the map. But it got us to where we needed to go. We found out later that Heather and Devin and Jo-Jo had followed the true path and didn't get a chance to see all the other campsites along the way like we did. 

If they had, they would have seen the neat chairs made from stones in the campsite just before ours (campsite # 3) .

But as neat as the chairs were, campsite # 4 actually had more room for all of our tents so we chose that one instead. It was about 1:30 p.m. when we got to our site. 

As we had predicted, Heather, Devin and Jo-Jo were already at our site and had a fire started. The tents weren't up yet, but they had already gotten water for the platypus (water filter system) and were relaxing. There was a nice big open space and a large log to sit on. We were so tired when we got there that we just dropped our packs and sat down. We didn't even set up our tents right away either. 

The site had a nice place to swim and if it had been warmer out I may have considered going in for a dip. 

I began to explore our campsite and came across a garter snake who was taking advantage of the sunshine and was sunning himself in the pine needles covering the ground. 

The sunshine was short lived though. About 20 minutes after we got there, the clouds rolled in and it began to rain again. 

We didn't have the tents up but luckily, mom had put up the tarp that goes over her tent. So, we quickly threw all of our gear under it to keep it dry. 

And Carsten, mom and I sat under the tarp with our gear and waited out the rain.

Meanwhile, Jo-Jo and Devin managed to get their tents up. We happened to have a couple of umbrellas with us so we used them to protect some of the gear. 

Just as we were starting to get cold and cranky, the sun came back out again. This time the rain stayed away and did not come back.  I took the opportunity to take a little walk to check out the next campsite over (campsite # 5) 

This campsite also had a make shift table. It wasn't as nice as the stone one from the previous day, but it was something. 

As I was walking back I hear what I thought was a bee flying very close to me. It sounded like a very large bee...like a bumble bee. I was surprised to find that it was not a bee, but was instead a humming bird. This humming bird was different than any humming bird I had seen before. It had no colours but was black and white. It had a white body, a black head and a black tail. 

It stopped for a moment and landed on a branch above me on a nearby tree. There it sat for a few moments while I stumbled with my camera to try to get a picture of it. All I could manage was a blurry blob of a picture before it flew away. From what I can tell from similar pictures on the internet, it was a Black-chinned humming bird. But, according to what I read, this humming bird was pretty far out of it's zone. It is usually sighted in western Canada and USA. Could be that I have misidentified it. 

 At any rate, I wondered what it could be eating since there wasn't much in the way of flowers or bugs at this time of year. But my mom pointed out that they will eat sap from trees. That made sense because there are a whole lot of woodpeckers in the area and there were many trees with Pileated Woodpecker holes with sap dripping from them. Most likely it was eating sap from the those trees. 

I brought back some more firewood from my walk and we made the fire large enough to cook supper on. 

I had Mr. Noodles with Corn Chips crumbled into it. 

Mom had the same but she also added some sun dried tomatoes to hers. 

After supper we finally got around to putting the tents up. 

Heather and I chose a nice little spot right down by the lake. 

Now that we had got all our stuff out from under mom's tarp she could finally put her tent up too. 

Carsten discovered a chain in a tree a little ways away from our site. He wondered what it was for. 

Then he discovered the sign. The chain was for hanging your food in the tree (or for tightrope walking, whichever you prefer). 

As dry as my shoes stayed through out today's travels, not everyone elses did. They took turns drying out their hiking boots around the fire. (I believe someone got their socks melted a little in this procedure). Speaking of socks...mom's neck was getting a bit cold so she fashioned a scarf out of a couple of clean socks and a safety pin. I guess watching episodes of McGyver all those years ago really paid off.

With our bellies full, and a warm fire to sit by and the sun still shining, we were all pretty content and enjoying the evening. We sat around the fire and played a game of Yahtzee. 

It was almost sad to watch what little sun we have seen the past few days sink into the horizon. 

But with all the clouds still hanging around it certainly did make for a beautiful sunset! The red clouds were spectacular and it was so bright it was almost like the clouds were on fire.

The lower the sun went, the pinker the clouds got. 

It was so bright that even the clouds that were far away from the sun had a hint of pink to them. 

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Finally the sun set fully and dusk came over us. This evening sky had been the crown jewel on a beautiful day. 

We all sat around the fire and enjoyed each others company for awhile. We listened to the Barred Owl calling in the distance. 

The sky was clear and the moon was so bright and the stars had come out. It was not as chilly as the previous nights. We even saw our first couple of mosquitoes of the season. There were only two or three luckily. 
   At about 11 p.m. we put out the fire and went to bed. Tomorrow we would be heading home. But for now I was loving the sounds of the owl and the wind in the trees and just being out here in the woods.