) Headed up on Thursday night for an early start on Friday morning, beautiful sunny day. We decided that we would start in Halfway P.P on the Lookout ridge Trail, and follow that for about 8 km's and then from there, bushwhack across southwest to Florida lake maybe another 8 or 9 km's. Before we even started we saw a Lynx cross the park road!! really cool! We also contacted the OPP and notified them them of our plans and the parking of the car in front of the closed Provincial Park.
The devastation from the tornado a few years back is quite devastating, trees knocked down everywhere, looked like a nuclear bomb had hit.
We progressed quite well and made it to the top of the trail and then we started to bushwhack out towards crown land. Unfortunately the GPS unit we had did not have the proper software and was useless to us, so we were going by compass and map alone.
We were lucky that we did not have to bushwhack through the area that was hit by the tornado, but it was still very difficult going through the thick alders and over streams. Our first destination was a "cabin" marked on the map, just before Trapper lake, but when we found it, nothing left but a few windows, doors and pots
We decided to continue and followed the shore line to the next lake and make camp there, we arrived there at about 3:30 pm and set up camp. We were going semi-lightweight and were all sleeping under a tarp(Dusans new MEC tarp) that had not been taped-seemed, so we were hoping for no rain. We ate and went to bed a 6 pm and when i woke up there was almost a foot of snow on us and the tarp
. I thought
it was early morning, but it was only midnight, so I cleared the snow off the
tarp and went back to bed(it was still snowing). Saturday morning we woke up to a lot of snow and wind, quite beautiful , but it changed our plans . We knew we could probably not make it to Florida Lake in good time without snowshoes, it would have been a hard trek, so we ate and packed up our gear and headed out . We probably could have stayed another night in the park but all the campsites on the trail were on uneven ground and cliffs, ready for anyone to roll into a lake
The walk out was tougher also due to the snow conditions and slippery rocks but we made it out by about 4 pm, total distance covered was about 30 km's.
We got changed right there in the parking lot and headed out into town to the local DQ for dinner and drive back home!
We didn't make it but we had a great time and I want to thank Dusan and Big Jim for a great trip, we all worked well together and made decisions as a group. Pictures to be posted very soon!!!(Dusan had the only camera)
Jim
