Training Log Archive: Bash

Hike around 3-Stage with AdventureDog.

Storm The Trent
Haliburton Forest

Coach LD and I signed up to do this race in May 2020 and then... you know. It was my first summer adventure race in two years and it was great to be back!

We went out in waves with an SI start control, which was good because we were one of the teams that got to the water's edge a bit late (oops). We did a 9 km paddle around Little Redstone and Pelaw Lakes in a stiff breeze. We were among the few teams to go counter-clockwise to visit the three controls. We had to remember a phrase written on a sign at each control. We turned it into a song that we repeated as we raced - and added a little choreography too. :) Coach LD portaged the canoe 800 m to the TA while I carried gear - the easy job.

After that, we transitioned to mountain bikes for the rest of the day, stopping for three treks along the way. The riding was so much fun! I don't enjoy riding on roads with traffic so Haliburton Forest was a perfect race venue for me. I think we encountered three moving vehicles all day.

Sometimes we rode through the forest on sandy gravel roads that were suitable for cars. Other times we rode through deep muck and huge puddles or over rocks and logs. There wasn't much flat terrain - just lots and lots of hills splashed with autumn colours, overlooking misty lakes. Coach LD is pretty much a professional cyclist these days so I worked hard to chase her all day (and never quite caught her).



We dropped our bikes at CP2 and circumnavigated Blue Lake, finding two controls. We jogged some of the non-technical flats and downhills and I managed to crunch my left ankle on a perfectly smooth section of road when I wasn't paying attention. Fortunately, that's not the foot with the Achilles injury so at least I'm limiting myself to one injury per foot.

It was cool - but not cold - and occasionally rainy. I wore a long-sleeved bike jersey with a lightweight rain jacket all day (pit zips open) and stayed fairly comfortable.

Because there was 100 mm of rain on Wed/Thurs, the race course was altered to remove a long section of ATV trail. That's OK - we still got to ride through plenty of mud puddles on the other trails! (Photo borrowed from a friend's Facebook post because I only pulled out my phone a few times.)



The revised race course involved riding from CP3 to CP4, then returning to CP3 to follow an alternate route to CP5. Heading to CP4, we did a 2 km climb with about 120 m of elevation gain. Much of the dirt road was goopy and soft with small rocks and an occasional stream running down it. Two-way traffic in those conditions added an extra element of adventure to the long hill but it was nice to greet other teams. On the toughest section, for bonus points, we met a truck coming uphill through the muck.

The ride from CP3 to CP5 was a narrower trail with more rocks, mud and huge puddles. We were on and off our bikes a lot. By then, we were just walking through the middle of the deepest, muckiest, longest puddles in our bike shoes. At CP5, we left our bikes for a longer trek to three controls along the Outlook and Lookout Trails. We met 'Bent and Tarno coming out as we were going in. There was a huge climb and descent on the slick, rocky Outlook Trail to the Redstone River, which was flowing fast.



Then we climbed up to the Lookout control.



I'd considered a bushwhack after that to take a shortcut back to the CP. I definitely would have done it in an orienteering race but the terrain was wet and cliffy, the map wasn't detailed, and the difference in distance wasn't enough to gain a huge benefit so we took the trail and gravel road around. The team that was 5 minutes in front of us at the Lookout CP did the bushwhack, and we beat them back to the CP and stayed ahead of them for the rest of the race so I felt a little less guilty about not using my nav skills.

The riding from CP5 to CP7 was fun, hilly and less of a mudfest - with some exceptions. I think this was the section with this memorable puddle - possibly the longest, deepest puddle I've ridden through without unclipping. The water went up to my bike wheel hubs and it was hard to steer. (Photo taken by Storm Racing on a sunnier day.)



It was nice to see Eco at CP6. At CP7 we had an optional advanced trek to three controls on the Dog Trail and Dog's Ear Trail. Some of it was quite technical and some was easy but we were hiking by then. Then we only had a 3 km ride to the Finish with one control to find at the base of a cliff along the trail.

Yahoo! Thank you for being a strong, smiling teammate, Coach LD! We had a fun day and finished about 2 hours behind 'Bent and Tarno, who were 2nd overall. That's the only result we'll know until early next week but I think it will be a solid midpack finish.



Huge thanks to Storm Racing for another very well-organized event - this time with the added challenge of all-new COVID-19 protocols. It all went very smoothly and everyone seemed to have a great time.

I'm packing for my first summer multisport adventure race in more than two years - Storm The Trent - and I'm looking forward to racing with Coach LD in Haliburton Forest tomorrow. (Yes, Friday. Thanks to Covid, Storm is spread out over three days this year.) There's only one other Female Masters team and lots of younger teams so I'm not feeling competitive pressure but I'm surprisingly nervous about things - leaving the dogs, getting enough sleep, staying in a motel, choosing gear and packing for a long, cool, rainy day in the woods. It's been a long pandemic.

Another run/walk around Palgrave Forest on a beautiful morning, this time with 1 minute hiking to 2 minutes running. To set up my Ambit 3 to beep once a minute, I had to connect it to my laptop with a cable, add an interval timer to one of my sport modes in Movescount, sync my watch, then Activate the interval function on the watch as I started my workout. I'd expected to just push a few buttons like I do on my Timex triathlon watch.

Counting to two also proved to be more challenging than I expected. :)

I met a man I often see walking with his three small rescue dogs. He told me it's probably the last time I'll meet him in the forest. His wife retired from teaching due to the pandemic and they're moving to Portugal.

Report from today's vax clinic shift:
- Possibly more than 50% first shots, which is awesome. Vaccine mandates start on Wednesday. A couple of people had an annoyed vibe but nobody was unpleasant to staff. A few seemed nervous, which may be why they waited.
- I met my first client coming in for a 3rd shot.
- Some people don't want to wait 28 days between shots - but they have to. (And it's actually better to wait longer.)
- For the first time, a Mom brought her teenaged son and confided that she was opposed but he insisted on getting vaccinated. Good for him. And good for her for letting him make the call.
- It looks like kids aged 5-11 will be eligible to get vaccinated by November, which means nearly all school-aged kids could lower their risk.

Mansfield Outdoor Centre used to be a great mountain biking destination but they closed for biking years ago because insurance costs were too high. Event organizers could still rent the venue and provide their own insurance, as I did in 2009 when I organized my first mountain bike orienteering race for the Caledon Navigators club.

I'm not sure how insurance is handled now but partway through this season, they re-opened for biking in partnership with the trail maintenance group for the Dufferin County Forest tract next door. 'Bent and I headed over to check it out today.

Plenty of other activities have continued at Mansfield. We've been there for orienteering races, winter adventure races and cross-country skiing. We've biked in the adjacent tract of Dufferin County Forest. So it felt very familiar but the trail builders have done a ton of work to improve the network so it also felt like exploration.



The red trail is for novices, blue and white are intermediate, and the yellow trail is expert. The trails connect to Dufferin County Forest to the north and east. We've been doing a lot of rocky-difficult riding since we got the place in Kolapore but this was difficult in a completely different way - quick, steep down/ups on narrow trails on side slopes, hairpin turns and off-angle roots. The consequences of falling at Kolapore are high because of all the rock. At Mansfield, the major risk was poison ivy - and not everywhere.

We saw almost no other riders in 2 hours but we *did* see Eugene Mlynczyk hanging ribbons for an upcoming orienteering event, the Turkey Trot. We stopped to chat for a while. We haven't seen him in real life since the pandemic started so it was great to catch up! He took this photo.



As we chatted, we noticed that my bike computer sensor had been torn off so when we left, we returned to the start of the blue loop to see if we could find it. It had stopped measuring distance at 0.74 km but that didn't turn out to be as helpful a clue as we had hoped.

Looking at this photo closely though, I see a more important item missing from my front pack pocket that I hadn't noticed yet - my phone. If I had thought to take a photo of Eugene, I would have noticed earlier! As it turns out, I got very, very lucky. When 'Bent phoned me to see whether my phone was in a different place in my pack, a woman answered my phone. Lori was out walking her adorable German Shepherd puppy when she noticed my phone on the trail. We chased them around the loop and I repaid her by taking some nice Mom & dog photos and sending them to her. Sooooo grateful!

We stopped for a snack at the lookout.



There were very few vehicles in the parking lot and a day pass is only $15 + tax so they're not making much money. If you're in the area, go! These are fun trails - we'll definitely go back.

I haven't been running because of my right Achilles insertional tendinopathy but I wanted to test whether the rest and physio have been helping. The doc did say I could run a bit. So I did a 1-minute on, 1-minute off run in Palgrave Forest. I'll know tomorrow whether my foot was happy with it. Regardless, Coach LD and I will do some running in Storm The Trent next week so I may as well remind my body how it's done.

First Tour de Palgrave Forest in a month. I felt surprisingly comfortable with technical riding after a long break, probably because Kolapore is so much harder that my most significant challenge at Palgrave is avoiding the abundant poison ivy. I've been hearing a rubbing noise and because I have my first AR since 2019 next week, I stopped to try to figure it out. After removing the front wheel, I identified it as "Weirdly Jiggly Front Brake". I shortened my ride because it didn't sound healthy. I have referred the patient to 'Bent for differential diagnosis and surgery.

I've finally caught up on the last few weeks on AP including a video of 'Bent and Coach LD leaping into Georgian Bay on Sept. 6, the tornado warning that wrecked our 25th anniversary dinner out on Sept. 7 and my journal of our Lake Superior Coastal Trail backpacking trip. The trip journal is too long to read unless you're interested in that part of the world but there are lots of photos if you're curious to skim through. It's a wild, beautiful part of Ontario that doesn't see a lot of visitors in the backcountry compared to more popular and accessible areas. I especially recommend this backpacking trip for Crossfitters, who would have found it easier than I did!

Here's the full trip in reverse chronological order because that's how my AP log is set up:
https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Or here's the day-by-day version for people who like chronological order:

Fri. Aug. 27 - Drive to Agawa Bay https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Sat. Aug. 28 - Gargantua Bay to Warp Bay https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Sun. Aug. 29 - Warp Bay with day hike to Chalfant Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Mon. Aug. 30 - Warp Bay to Rhyolite Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Tues. Aug. 31 - Rhyolite Cove to Beatty Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Wed. Sept. 1 - Beatty Cove to Baldhead South https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Thurs. Sept. 2 - Baldhead South to Robertson Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Fri. Sept. 3 - Robertson Cove to Bartlett Island https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Sat. Sept. 4 - Bartlett Island to Agawa Bay https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

I was back at the Caledon East COVID-19 vaccine clinic today after a few weeks away. What a difference a mandate makes! It's not crazy busy like it was in June but it's busier than August. About 40% of our clients were walk-ins and a significant proportion of them were getting first shots. People asked how the vaccine passport will work and expressed concern about how long they'll need to wait to get their 2nd shot, not to mention the extra 14 days until they're fully vaccinated. Suddenly they're in a hurry because they have plans to travel or attend a social event at a restaurant.

These people aren't anti-vaxxers; the anti-vaxxers won't be coming in. These are people who didn't make vaccination a priority until the mandates were announced. Maybe they have busy lives, maybe they were worried about side effects, maybe they need it for work, maybe they think they're too young to get really sick from Covid, maybe they figured it wasn't necessary because the rest of us had gotten vaccinated.

Nobody expressed anger - not like the people who swore at clinic staff during the Pfizer shortage. In the early months, vaccine clinics were filled with happy, excited clients. Now the people are pleasant but if they were excited about getting vaccinated, we would have seen them a long time ago. We try hard to make them feel good about coming in - definitely no embarrassment about waiting so long. As always, my goal is to make every client smile if I can.

If you haven't been watching Karen Holland's Bruce Trail run, now is the time to start.

If she reaches Queenston by 9:27 am tomorrow (Sunday), she will take the overall FKT from Kip Arlidge, who just took an incredible 13.5 hours off the record in June with his time of 9 days, 3 hrs 27 mins. Charlotte Vasarhelyi set the overall FKT in 2010 and never claimed the Female FKT because she didn't believe in gendered FKTs. Since then, the overall supported Bruce Trail FKT has been held by a series of male runners. That could change tomorrow but it's going to be really close. Charlotte now holds the self-supported Bruce Trail FKT, btw.

Karen finished at Tiffany Falls just after midnight and hit the trail at 6 am with about 127 km to go. Most other days, she has started at 6 am and finished between 8:30-10:30 pm. This is in contrast to Kip's strategy of 18-20 hour days. She seems to have chosen a "Sleep more, go faster" strategy. We saw her fly by in Kolapore - so fast that I don't think she even noticed us. From Dundas, Kip made a big 32-hour push to the finish including two naps totalling 3 hours. It will be close and it will be exciting!

Karen is raising funds for the Bruce Trail Conservancy and is a long way short of her goal at the moment.

'Bent and AdventureDog have gone on a boys' canoe trip with some retired dentists so BazingaDog and I went for a hike in Palgrave Forest to make him feel better about being left behind.

Between Wilderness Traverse and our backpacking trip, I fell off the physio wagon so I need to start my 6-week right heel drop program again for my Achilles tendinosis. The good news is that our backpacking trip didn't make it feel worse; it might even feel a bit better.

'Bent and I went for a hike around Kolapore before heading home and picking up the dogs. We found 3 good-sized trees down from last night's storm, which we reported to the Wilderness Trails committee. One of the trees had an active bee hive right in the place where you'd be most likely to step over the trunk. Luckily, 'Bent stopped me before disaster struck.

25th wedding anniversary paddle on the Beaver River.



We had bigger plans for our silver anniversary but thanks to Covid, we'll need to celebrate with more flair later on - maybe on our 27th. We got some bonus adventure when the weather radar showed a storm approaching more quickly than we'd expected. We paddled back to Epping like we were in a race!

We'd booked a patio dinner at Tesoro in Collingwood but a tornado warning started an hour before we were supposed to leave. So we sat in the basement and waited until it was downgraded to a severe thunderstorm warning. We drove to Collingwood thinking we could at least get takeout in the pouring rain but the power was out in much of the town and the restaurant was closing. We drove around town looking for a good takeout meal and also went to Thornbury but in the end, after an hour and a half of driving, we just went back to Kolapore, heated up some frozen meals and watched TV. That's OK - we'll have our anniversary dinner another time.

'Bent and I joined Coach LD for a rare urban ride around Collingwood and down to Nottawa and Batteaux. Near the end of our ride, the two of them jumped off the pier for a very windy swim!

Heavy rain started falling during the night. Our tent is usually a dry haven but the seam seal must be failing on the fly because I felt some light drops on my face. While Richard slept, I pulled all our stuff away from the tent walls and put my loose gear and clothing into a big dry bag. It wasn't too bad but things felt damp in the morning.

The rain tapered a little as we packed up but it looked like an "interesting" day. It wasn't long before the rain returned.



We'd booked a final campsite at Agawa Point, thinking we could hike out to Agawa Bay in the morning and start driving. Given the weather, we decided to hike all the way from Barrett Island to the finish and figure out a plan later.



We'd been warned that some of the rocks get really slippery when wet. Today's section of trail was challenging in a different way from the sections where we scrambled over rocks near the lake. It was more of an obstacle course of big jumbled rocks and cliffs, including some near-vertical climbs and descents where we thought carefully about handholds and footholds in the slick conditions.









We detoured down to see the Agawa Rock pictographs but it wasn't a safe day to go out on the wet rock ledge to see them.



I got a glimpse of a couple of pictographs but mostly I just read about them on the sign.







From here, things got really jumbly.



















Somewhere in there, we stopped at Agawa Point - our reserved campsite - for a quick lunch. It was just long enough to make me chilly and inspire me to get to the finish. We didn't make any more stops or take any more photos until we reached Agawa Bay.

We made a big detour inland to cross the Agawa River on the highway bridge and strayed onto an informal fishing trail on the south side before realizing our mistake. It looks like we may have been able to wade across the Agawa River but it wasn't a day for experiments. The last 2 km was a boring, straight, former park road. We made it to our van at the Agawa Bay Visitor Centre and quickly changed into dry clothes while it continued to pour.

This was a perfect 25th anniversary celebration and we even got some "honeymoon weather"! (Hurricane Fran rained mercilessly throughout our honeymoon canoe trip and - like this trip - we combined our final two days into one for that reason.)



The Lake Superior Coastal Trail was fun, scenic, uncrowded, physically challenging and adventurous - highly recommended for those who like that sort of thing. I think I'd backpack some favourite sections again but if I did the whole trail, I might try the non-stop adventure racer approach with a day pack to make the technical sections easier. Bob Miller's FKT for the 53 km Gargantua Bay to Agawa Bay section is an incredible 7 hrs 44 mins.

We'd like to backpack the nearby Coastal Trail in Pukaskwa National Park in the next few years. We've paddled there so we know it's equally beautiful, and I'm told it's slightly less technical and has better campsites on average.

Post Script: We phoned in an order for whitefish, salad and chips to the Voyageur's Lodge and Cookhouse in Batchawana Bay. It seemed like too much food. It wasn't. Then we had dessert.

We were invited to arrive very late at the Waddtage in Nobel, which was wonderful after a long, rainy drive. We had a yummy pancake breakfast and a great visit with Hammer and Etoile before heading on our way. Thank you, Wadd Squad!







________________________________________

If anyone is interested in backpacking some or all of the Coastal Trail, campsite reservations are available starting five months in advance at Ontario Parks. Here is some further information that may be useful:

Our planned schedule - a purposely relaxed pace. As mentioned, we did the final two days in one.



Trail distances chart - helpful although time is a better measure than distance because this trail is so technical in some sections. Except for the final day, we were lucky to have dry conditions. Our time includes regular breaks to eat snacks, purify water and enjoy the scenery.

The morning skies at Robertson Cove hinted at bad weather to come. We hit the trail earlier than usual.









Our destination was the Barrett Island area - the southeast part of this map.



After half a kilometre, we stumbled upon the Group of Six happily wild camping on some large rocks. We reached the Katherine Cove picnic area where we enjoyed a much-anticipated event: throwing out all our garbage!



We'd also heard there might be (gasp!) flush toilets but sadly, we weren't in need.

The Park has a few Group of Seven displays including this one, which discussed their work in Algoma.



I loved this plaque on one of the benches. I wish I could have met Tom. He and Richard would have gotten along.



After chatting with a shy, friendly couple who were backpacking-curious, we continued down the coast.





We hiked long stretches of sandy beach near the Sand River and the Barrett River.





We had to go up to the highway to cross the Sand River. The bridge was under construction and down to a single lane so it was more nervewracking than expected. The map showed us crossing the Barrett River on the highway too but there was only a small creek to hop over.

We had lunch at one of the very pleasant Barrett North campsites.







Then we carried on past Barrett South around to the two Barrett Island campsites.



The first site was pretty average so we scrambled over a rocky point to get to the next cove to check out the other site. It was also pretty average but it was closer to the finish so we stayed. We constructed a tent platform on the gravel beach because the tent sites in the trees looked lumpy and tilted.



We went for a walk around both sides of our cove and built additional trail cairns to make the route more visible.











Once again at 6:30 pm, we saw the Group of Six standing at the rocky entrance to our cove, looking crestfallen to see us using our reserved campsite. When they hiked around, the leader laughed when I asked which campsite they had booked. This time there was barely room for one tent on our site so they didn't propose staying. The leader gestured across the cove and said they would probably put their tents on some rocks "over there". I commented, "Yeah, the Park hates that." They continued on somewhere.

Once again, the clouds at sunset were a little too beautiful. The rain was expected to arrive by morning. We didn't have cell signal but the last forecast had sounded pretty awful. It was definitely a hot chocolate night.

After breakfast, we climbed Baldhead on another beautiful morning.









With a name like Baldhead, you'd expect the trail to climb to a fabulous, open viewpoint but the trail stayed in the forest below the summit. We caught a few glimpses of scenery on the climb. This is the view back to where we had come from.



And this is where we were going, as seen from a small open plateau on the descent toward the Coldwater River.



After a steep descent, we made a wrong turn but it led back to the main trail and we were soon at the water's edge again.



Around Coldwater, we finally experienced a problem I'd read about - how to choose the best path across a soft sand or gravel beach. After dangling on cliffs with my big pack and walking across moving boulder fields, I was looking forward to sections of trail where my biggest concern would be sinking in too far.



The Coldwater River almost didn't exist as it approached Lake Superior. We'd seen this in other places. The water in a creek or river would sometimes run underground through gravel and sand into Lake Superior, allowing us to just hop over a small flow or nothing at all.

We stopped for lunch here. I think there was a parking lot but we only noticed one other person who looked like a backpacker heading the other way.





Richard looked for pretty stones again.





After lunch, we continued to Coldwater South, where there were some beautiful, rocky campsites. Maybe on another trip!













There was lots of rock hopping.





And rock walking.





Then we saw our campsite, Robertson Point. Such a cool place! We liked it even more than Beatty Cove.



There was just one campsite right beside the trail.



Behind the tent and kitchen area was a narrow spit with a sandy swimming beach on one side and a rocky bay on the other side.







Beyond the sand spit was a large area of smooth, undulating rock with little pools of water.



After setting up camp and rinsing out some clothing, we went for a swim.





Then we read, drank tea and dried things on our clothesline until dinner time.

At 6:30 pm, we were surprised to see a group of six hikers heading south. It was a long way to the next official campsite - impossible before dark. We began the usual friendly trail chat with the leader as the rest of the group left the trail and started milling around our site - past our underwear on the clothesline, beside our camp chairs on the sand.

The leader said they'd booked a campsite at Coldwater, about an hour back, but they'd purposely hiked past it because it was going to rain in a couple of days and they wanted to go faster.

I told him they could get to Katherine Cove in an hour - toilet buildings, garbage, parking lot and sandy beach. I didn't mention that it would be illegal but their only legal option would be hiking back to the site they'd reserved, which they clearly didn't want to do. He smiled and said, "To be honest, we may pitch our tents here." I was so stunned that I just stared and didn't answer.

In all my time in the backcountry, I've never met someone who threatened to set up three tents on my reserved campsite without asking. This guy must have known that we had to book this desirable site five months in advance. There was cell signal so they could have checked whether the site was occupied before they left their reserved site. The only route between the sand spit and the thunderbox was right through our tent and kitchen area, which must be the reason the Park only built one site here. It's even weirder for people to force themselves on strangers during a pandemic. The other members of the group wandered all around our site, conversing in pairs.

They never asked to stay so we never said no but I'm sure they sensed our displeasure and they eventually headed down the trail. We would have invited them to stay if we'd been concerned for their safety but at most, they risked an unpleasant night on bumpy ground with no amenities - and maybe that would be a good lesson in following park rules.

I can't remember if I was drinking hot chocolate or Limoncello but it was a lovely sunset even though we could see that the weather was going to change.

Richard and I took our time this morning since we expected a shorter day on the trail and it was hard to imagine that we'd have a nicer campsite than Beatty Cove.





We had one of our more time-consuming breakfasts using dehydrated eggs. The kitchen area at our site came with two plywood table tops and a little stool. Very civilized backcountry camping!



The most luxurious aspect of this site was definitely the bear bin. It's so nice to lock up your food and go for a hike without hanging it - even if you're mostly just worried about chipmunks and mice. Until this point, we had a bear bin on every campsite. After this, we only saw one more.



We chatted with a couple from Ottawa who hiked by. They were heading for the Baldhead River. We were heading a little farther to Baldhead South - a single site at the base of Baldhead.



We couldn't put it off forever so we packed up and left our beach paradise behind.











We took a short break for snacks and views after each hour on the trail, a practice we borrowed from a guided trip we did years ago. They told us voyageurs used to take hourly "pipe breaks" so that's what we called our stops.







We stopped for lunch on the gravel spit at the mouth of the Baldhead River, within sight of our campsite at Baldhead South (the point behind Richard).



The Orphan Lake day hiking trail loops down to the coast here so we saw a few more people. One man politely asked permission to take our photo as we sat on the gravel eating lunch. He wanted to try backpacking some day and I guess we were some kind of tourist attraction.







I chose the Baldhead South site to steer clear of possible crowds but sometimes the more popular campsites are popular for a reason. Our site was interesting for one night but it wasn't as pleasant as our previous campsites. We had beautiful views from the lakeshore and it was exciting to be on a point with waves crashing noisily on the rocks. On the other hand, we couldn't go swimming, there was a steep, awkward climb to our tent and kitchen area, and we kept thinking about the Edmund Fitzgerald. It was the first night we had to hang our food but at least the site came with a thunderbox.















You can see by the cairn behind us that the "front yard" of our campsite was on the Coastal Trail. We arrived in the early afternoon and stayed until after breakfast but not a single hiker went by.



We walked further down the trail and found a beautiful flat rock where we could sit and read in the stiff breeze.







We texted Kristen to see if she thought it would be OK to take our drinking water from this stream since it was hard to get water from the lake by our site. She texted us back from a patio in Gatineau where she was drinking an icy beer with Tim, Aubrey and Sally. Thankfully, she said the stream looked OK but after that, I was just thinking about beer.



We went for a peaceful sunset hike, collected pretty stones on the beach and put them back after we admired them.