Trip Log: Algonquin Provincial Park: Mew Lake: February 18-19, 2018

Trail to the waterfalls

We had been trying for the last few years to make it to Algonquin for Family Day Weekend and we finally did!  Unfortunately, we couldn't get there for the Saturday, when all the demonstrations were going on, but it still ended up being a great, short trip with wonderful weather.

The kids had gone to my parents house for the previous night, and drove up with them on the Sunday morning to meet us.  We ended up meeting in Minden so we could drive up together.  This was our first time towing the Boler with the "new" car, and it performed wonderfully-no weird burning smells or noises at all.

By some miracle, we managed to leave home early (ok...9:38am which is still early for us to get out of the yard) and arrived at the permit office by about 1.  Our plan had been to hike out to the waterfalls and have lunch, veggie burgers cooked on Mum's Biostove, but we forgot about one thing. The people staying on the site we had reserved, didn't have to leave until 2 and since we had the camper, there wasn't really anywhere to park it so we ended up waiting until they left (Right at 2) and then just cooked our burgers at the site.

The Boler at Mew Lake

It was a little chilly, mostly due to the wind, but not unbearable at all.  We spent most of the day walking around with the dog hoping to tire him out a bit so he wasn't so hard to settle down at bed time.  We hiked down to the waterfalls as usual then returned to camp and tried to start a fire.  It wasn't a very successful fire.  It burned, but needed constant help.  When we ducked into the Boler to eat dinner, it pretty much went out, so we had to restart it.  Of course, as usual, just as we got it going well, everyone decided they were tired and wanted to go to bed.

We didn't see any pine martin's this year, despite several attempts to get spot them.  I got up early and took Biscuit for a walk, hoping to see them before there were many people up and about, but no luck.

We were expecting a snow storm later in the day, so we decided we wouldn't stick around for too long.  When everyone got up, we had breakfast and Chris took the kids for a ski in the air field, just because we had hauled our cross country skis here, he figured we might as well use them.  Originally he had wanted us all to go to the Leaf Lake Trail, but since dogs aren't allowed on the ski trails we would have had to leave Biscuit alone in the car, and it was kind of cold for that.

Making coffee and hot chocolate

While everyone else did that, I took Biscuit for a walk along the section of campsites that are closer to the highway, where we stayed a few years back.  He wasn't happy with me, as he wanted to be with Chris, and pretty much tried to drag me backwards the whole time.

I really wish we had gotten to see the winter camping demonstrations.  I think it would have been really interesting, and informative.  Nevertheless, it was still really cool to see all the different styles of hot tents people had, from very large, to very small.  It was also neat to see the creativity people use when it comes to creating a winter shelter.  We saw pop up ice fishing huts with stoves in them, which is something Chris and I had discussed a few years ago.

Next year, I hope we can make it up for the whole weekend, though whether it's in the Boler, or in a hot tent of our own, I don't know.

One thing I'd like to mention, was a new piece of gear we tried out on this trip, though I hesitate to call it gear.  In previous trip logs, I've mentioned how Biscuit likes to suck on (and rip) sleeping bags and blankets.  Chris had the idea of buying a moving blanket (they were on sale at Princess Auto) and using it as an over blanket.  It was big enough to tuck under us so Biscuit couldn't pull it aside, and inexpensive so if he did rip it, it wouldn't be that big of a deal...and it would be easy enough to sew a patch on, because we wouldn't really care what it looked like.  It worked pretty well.  Getting it into place was a bit of a challenge, but our sleeping bags stayed slobber free and whole, so I'd say it did it's job.

Trip Log: Algonquin Provincial Park: Mew Lake, April 16-17, 2017

Easter is one of those holidays where it can be tough to get time off work, but it's also an ideal time for us to go camping because the kids get four days off from school.  Originally, I had hoped to take the whole weekend off...then it was how to manage two nights, and by the time we ended up going, we could only get one night off of work.  Sucks, but at least one night is better than not camping at all.

So, since Chris and I had to work Friday and Saturday, the kids ended up going to my parents house.  The plan was that Mum and Dad would drive them up Sunday and meet us at our site, we'd have easter dinner, and then the kids would stay and Mum and Dad would drive home.

Pine Martin - Mew Lake Campground

Since we were only going for one night, we got packed and ready to go in good time.  I think we left the house by 9:25.  We were chased down our street by a big male turkey, one of the flock (is a group of turkey's a flock?) that spent the whole winter in our little neighbourhood.  Of the five that were here, there's only the one male and one female now.  The male spent the whole winter chasing cars up and down our street.

It rained on and off the whole drive up to Algonquin, but it wasn't until we got to the West Gate that it began to get heavy.  I got out of the car to get our permit and was told they'd opened the Mew Lake gate house for the weekend so we were to get our permit there.  Mum and Dad were already there, parked at the start of  the trail by the garbage area waiting for us.  They let us know our site was empty...but it was a huge pond.  While Chris set up the inside of the  trailer for six people to sit, I walked to the bathrooms and to find the others since texts weren't getting through.  When I showed up at the parking area, they were gone, so I ran back to the comfort station, then back to the site.

The first thing the kids tell me is that they don't want to stay.  I thought they were joking. But it was chilly and wet and we couldn't actually find a place to put the trailer that didn't mean stepping out into 2 inches of water, so even though they had boots, they weren't keen on staying.  Mum and Dad weren't big on it either. As we discussed it, I was standing in the rain, getting wetter and wetter, and they all sat in the warm, dry cab of my Dad's truck.  Needless to say I gave in rather than stand there for too long.

As I was talking to them, Chris was trying to reposition the trailer onto a bit of higher ground.  He managed to succeed, sort of, and then when he went to unhook the trailer from the car, the key for the lock that he uses on the hitch snapped off, leaving us with no way to disconnect the trailer from the car.  This left us essentially stuck at the campground unless we wanted to haul the Boler with us, which we didn't.  It wasn't a big deal.  We had planned to run to Whitney and grab a few last minute things for dinner, but since it would be just Chris and I, we didn't really need extra food.  We'd have to make a run there on our way out to gas up but that was a problem for the following day.

flooded section of trail between the bridge and the rail trail

Since we were already soaked, and Biscuit was driving us nuts being cooped up in the trailer, we decided to just go for a walk.  We had our sneakers on still, and there was a good foot or two of snow on the ground in spots.  After snapping a few shots of a pine martin near the garbage area, we headed off down the trail.  The plan was to head across the air field, then cross the river at the bridge, head to the right down the railway tracks and come back via the backpacking trail and track and tower trail.

When we got to the bridge, we saw how high the water was compared to when we had paddled through in August.  We decided to explore further down the rail trail so turned to the left and continued to where the trail runs very close to the shore of Lake of Two Rivers.  Mostly this was to see how thick the ice still was, and it looked pretty solid.  We turned around and continued on to where the Highland Backpacking trail crosses, and turned down it to loop back to Mew Lake.  The solid part of the trail was only about six inches wide.  Anything on either side of that was soft and meant you would sink about 2 feet down into a few inches of icy slush. We didn't make it very far before Biscuit tugged Chris to the side and he went through the soft stuff.  Not long after that and we came to a part of the trail where the river had flooded up over, blocking our way, so we turned around and headed back to the airfield.

Now cold and hungry, we got back to camp and changed into dry socks, pants and warm boots, then Chris set about rigging up a bit of a shelter for the dutch oven.  Our Easter dinner plan had been to make beans and biscuits.  The meal usually feeds 6 with leftovers, so I had to cut back a bit in order to not have a huge pile of food go to waste.  It was yummy and very filling.

Beans and Biscuits - Yum!

Cleaning the dutch oven proved a little challenging as usual, especially since it kept drizzling on and off and I was concerned with the outside of the pot getting wet then rusting.

After dinner, we walked around the campground a bit, then headed back to camp for an early night.  We were both tired after several days of long hours at work, and our earlier hike.  Walking in snow that is solid one minute then collapses under you the next takes a lot out of a person!

Biscuit snuggled himself in between us and we had a great night's sleep.  The fireplace worked very well when it didn't have to try and combat temperatures in the -20s.

Flooded approach to the bridge over Madawaska

The next morning, we made bagels with the toaster oven like we did on our last trip.  This time we didn't have to thaw them first, which was nice.  Since we were in no real rush to get home, we decided to go back out again for another hike, this time going our usual way - head out past the garbage area and turn right onto the track and tower off shoot, then left onto the backpacking trail to the bridge.  The trail was much harder going than it had been a few weeks previous.  A lot of melting had taken place since our last trip and like the day before, we sank through several deceptively solid parts of the trail.  There were a few places where we had to build temporary bridges with downed branches because the whole trail had a creek running through it.

As we got closer to where the two trails cross, I saw that the water level was very high, as high as it had been a few years back when there was so much flooding.  And sure enough, when we turned onto the backpacking trail, we were stopped several meters from the bridge by rushing water.  The two sections of wooden platform were washed into their current position a few years ago, and were never put back into their proper place.  The water there was at least a couple feet deep.

Disappointed we turned around and headed back to camp.  With nothing left to do, we packed up and headed back to my parents house to get the kids and head home.  It was a little disappointing, having the kids back out on the trip, but sometimes it's nice to have some camping time to ourselves as well.

Trip Log: Algonquin Provincial Park, Mew Lake, March 13-14, 2017

I hate admitting to have given up.  For a while, I considered writing this trip log as if we had stayed the second night, but I hate the thought of lying even more, so here it is, we wussed out and headed home a day early.

There were multiple reasons for this, but I'll get to that later in the trip report.

We arrived at the West Gate at 4:30pm, half an hour after they closed.  I knew they were closed but I suggested to Chris we stop in and see if there were further instructions posted for people with reservations arriving late.  As I was reading the sheet on getting self serve permits for people without reservations, the woman working the gate house saw me and let me in.  Bonus!  This meant we wouldn't have to drive back out and pick up the permit in the morning.

Not long after we arrived at Mew Lake.  I had promised everyone I hadn't picked a site that was right at the bathrooms, but when we got there, the site we had, was pretty much right across the road from the comfort station.  I swear, when I was booking it, it looked further down the road...  Anyway, the kids hid in the car while we got the electric fire place going, but everything in the Boler was cold because we had been getting temps of -21 for the past several days at home.  The cushions that make up the larger bed actually had ice under them and were frozen to the fibreglass.  It looks like this spring we are going to have to do a lot of work on the little camper, because water is clearly getting in somewhere.

We have two pieces of an old 2 inch thick foam mattress topper that Chris and I put on our bed to make it a bit bigger since I tend to fall off the outside edge a lot, especially with the dog.  Normally we can roll them up and stuff them in the compartments under our bed, but they were so frozen stiff (and a bit wet in a few spots) that they wouldn't roll, so we ended up having to store them in the car while the bed was set up as a table.  While we were setting up though, Chris put them on the roof of the car.  Yeah, we are the super classy campers...

Also the super unprepared campers.  I realized the morning we left that I must have donated my old winter coat or tossed it.  This left me with a not-warm-at-all pea coat, or a bush jacket.  I chose the bush jacket because it at least could close up higher on my chest.  So yeah, there we are surrounded by people in nice, warm parkas and I'm wearing a bush jacket I got on sale at Giant Tiger.

We got the kids into the trailer, but the fireplace was really struggling to warm the place up.  It was -21 according to the weather report posted in the laundry room.  Thankfully there was no wind, as the trailer is less than perfect when it comes to drafts.

While everyone else sat in the relative warmth of the Boler, I braved the cold and made dinner, sloppy joes and instant mashed potatoes.  Normally, we would butter and toast buns in a frying pan, but with only two burners, and it being so cold, I knew I couldn't toast enough for us all in one batch.  Since we wanted to all eat together, we settled on mashed potato.  The kids were't impressed with them though.  Also, we could have made the sloppy joes with toast.  Chris had the idea of bringing our toaster oven from home.   We figured if it worked out well enough, we'd buy a little one that was just for in the Boler.

After dinner was cleaned up, we started to play a game of Sequence when Squatch started to get a stomach ache.  I walked over to the comfort station with him and waited for him to finish.  We picked up the game again, and a few minutes later, again, he got bad stomach cramps.  So again, I walked him over and this time waited in the laundry room.  I'd be able to hear if anyone flushed and could pop my head out to see if it was him, but otherwise I'd stay warm.  While I was there, I saw the Environment Canada weather report and saw that the next day was supposed to be just as cold but very windy on top of it.  My stomach dropped.  When I'd booked the trip, a few days before we'd left, I had checked the weather.  At home. we'd been getting a lot of days of -20 and strong winds, but the reports for Algonquin looked a lot nicer, closer to -11 and sunny.  I had a feeling nobody was going to be happy the next day.

After the second bathroom trip, we got back and the game was packed up and Chris was setting up the beds.  This is such a chore, and involves a lot of shuffling, frustration and complaining.  Eventually we all got into bed and everyone read for a little bit, then we turned off the lights and called it a night.

Squatch woke up around 4 and got out of bed to check the time, he also told me he was very cold.  I realized he had a t-shirt on and no socks, even though I'd given him a nice dry wool pair after he was in bed so he wouldn't get them wet walking on the Boler floor.  After a brief argument, I got him to put his sweater into his sleeping bag for a minute, then to put it on.  The next morning both kids had said they were cold through the night.  This was the point I started thinking maybe we should head home early.  I knew if they'd been cold when there had been no wind, they'd be miserable with cold wind whipping in through the gaps around the door.

We made our bagels, which had frozen solid over night.  We had to run them through a toast cycle to thaw them enough to cut in half, then toast them  We also had a box of corn pops that we just handed around.  I made coffee and hot chocolate, but the wind was picking up a bit and kept blowing the stove out.  I admit to being a little depressed at this point.  It seemed like nobody was having fun, and we were likely to end up sitting in the trailer all day reading or playing on phones/ipads.  Luckily, Chris got everyone dressed and insisted we do a short hike to the water fall.

There were protests.  Neither of the kids wanted to go outside at all, but we talked them into it, and headed out to the start of the trail.  When we got to the garbage area, I saw some movement and we realized there was a pine martin in the tree.  We spent quite a while taking pictures and then another one showed up.  They chased each other around for a while then scampered off out of sight.

We made our way to the bridge along the backpacking trail, and stopped to photograph a gray jay who was curious about us.  Normally we just head back, but we decided to continue on along the backpacking trail for a little ways.  The kids started to complain a bit, but kept going.  After a few minutes, we came to the rail trail.  I tried to check the map on my phone and the battery, which had been full when we left, died almost instantly.  We ventured to the right for a little ways, then came back and went to the left.  When we went to the left, we came across a sign for the Bike trail with a map, and I realized we were close to the bridge that you would cross if you were taking the Old Railway Bike Trail.  We opted to cross there and head back over the airfield and back to camp.

We decided to head to the visitor centre for lunch, mostly just as a way to warm up.  On the way back to Mew Lake we stopped at the Spruce Bog Board Walk Trail to try feeding the birds.  Squatch wouldn't keep his gloves on, because no birds would land on them, and I was starting to get worried and irritated.  My hands were frozen with gloves on, so I knew his had to be even worse.  We weren't getting many birds anyway, so we headed back to the car and tried a bit more there.

I was trying to get everyone to get back into the car when I looked towards the trail and saw a fox just sitting there watching us.  My first thought was that it was kind of odd behaviour, so I ushered Squatch back down from the snowbank he was standing on.  The fox calmly walked around the car, came within 5 or 6 feet of us and began eating all the birdseed previous visitors had tossed around.

A little cold, but in good spirits, we headed back to the Boler and turned on the fireplace again.  Crackers were handed around and I headed back outside into the cold to make dinner.  I had planned to make a sort of tex mex thing over rice.  Basically it was canned beans, corn, green chilies and tomatoes thrown together into a pot.  Unfortunately, all the canned items were frozen solid.  I was able to scrape most of them out, but that meant that the corn and beans weren't drained and so I had to boil them longer so the meal wasn't all soupy.  With the temps now dropping, and the wind whipping through camp and blowing out the stove every little while, it seemed to take forever to get the food hot, let alone have it boil down a bit.

Eventually, we were all cozy in the trailer eating and I brought up the possibility of going home.  It was around this time that the stove stopped working.  Chris went out and checked the plug and it turned out the switch on the electrical hub had kicked off.  Not a big deal but in the middle of the night?

Nobody argued against going home, but my big concern was that Chris would make fun of me the whole time.  It was about 7pm and already we were cold, even with the fireplace pumping out heat.  So we called it, did a quick lock down of the stray gear, and got back into the car to head home.

All in all, I don't regret going, nor do I regret leaving early.  The trip proved to be a valuable learning experience for us.  We now know that the Boler needs a bit of work done before we can comfortably camp in very cold weather.   But we saw lots of wildlife, and had a good time.  We were able to leave on a good note rather than in the morning when everyone had spent a miserable night, which would have left us all with a negative impression of the trip.  Now, when we look back we will remember that, yes it was really cold, but we saw two pine martin, a fox and had a great time.

Trip Log: Mew Lake April 21-23, 2013 Yurt Camping

Last week, my dad got a big telephoto lens for his camera, and we were eager to take it for a test run during moose spotting season in Algonquin, so we checked the weather and booked a yurt for a few nights.

With all the flooding in Algonquin this spring, we weren't sure we'd be able to actually do much.  A lot of trails were closed, and many of the roads as well, but we spent most of the trip driving back and forth along the highway looking for moose.  The moose, unfortunately were pretty elusive until monday night when we finally spotted a few.

Western Uplands Backpacking Trail

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  We arrived at the west gate just after 2 on Sunday afternoon.  The sun was out, but it was pretty chilly. We stopped at the Western Uplands Backpacking trail entrance and checked out the water levels.  You could probably canoe the first part of the trail right now.

After unloading all the bedding and kitchen stuff at the yurt, we had a quick lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches, then piled back into the truck to begin our moose hunt.  We didn't see any, but we did spot a Great Gray Owl perched on the top of a dead tree.  I've never seen an owl that close before, nor had I seen one twisting its head around.  I mean, I know they can do it, but seeing it was pretty cool.

We stopped at the visitor's centre (I bought a book) and took a few pictures from the viewing platform.  You can see how high the water levels were in Sunday Creek.  I hope to canoe there this summer, and usually, when you see it from the deck, it looks so narrow it's hard to imagine canoeing on it.

We headed in to Whitney after passing the east gate because we realized we'd forgotten a few things for meals (sauce for pita pizzas being one thing) but the store was already closed.  We spent some time checking out the very high level of the water flowing over the damn and under the bridge.  It was kind of scary really, standing on the bridge looking at that much water flow beneath you.  I'm not even sure why it was so eerie, when we've stood by other fast flowing rivers.  Maybe it was because the river isn't usually that high or fast, and it's kind of unnerving to watch huge waves barrel over an entire island.

On the way back into the park, just before the east gate, we spotted a fox sitting in the sun.  We pulled over and took a bunch of pictures, and he just sat there watching us.  After a few minutes he came close so he was only maybe 5-10 feet away (it's hard to remember when I had the camera pressed to my face almost the entire time, looking through a 300mm lens.) and posed some more before running off.

Trail leading to the bridge over Madawaska River

After a few failed attempts to get pictures of Great Blue Herons we kept seeing in swampy ponds, we headed back to the yurt then hiked to the falls near the junction of the Track and Tower offshoot trail and the Highland Backpacking trail.  The backpacking trail was closed and we soon saw why.  The water level in the river was so high, you couldn't get within 30-40 feet of the bridge.  We bush wacked our way along the water edge and managed to get a few pictures (not good ones as you can see, the trees were pretty thick.  In August when we were there, Chris and the kids walked along the bottom of the river and walked under the bridge...now there's maybe a foot of clearance beneath the bottom.

It was starting to get dark when we got back so we made dinner and headed into the yurt.  We heard wolves howling a few times during the night.

High water on Madawaska River

The next morning was pretty chilly.  Dad, Bubbie and I went up to the field by the garbage area to see the morning sun on the frosty trees and took a few pictures then we headed back to make breakfast.  We headed back towards the west gate for more moose spotting. We saw one, a young one, dead in the ditch (about km10) with several vultures hovering around it.  As we sat there, observing it and wondering if it had been hit by a car the night before, we noticed a wolf on the ridge behind it, partially hidden by trees.  I tried to get a picture as it stalked off, but it was gone so fast all I got was a blur.  Other than that, we had no luck, but stopped to take pictures of run-off waterfalls, ponds and some beavers.  Then hiked the Hardwood Lookout Trail before heading back to camp to wait for Chris.

Once Chris arrived, we had dinner and started on a bottle of wine (much to the kid's horror) when we decided to try moose spotting at dusk, since early morning and mid day had been a bust.  Mum doesn't drink, so she drove.  We headed towards the west gate and spotted two moose at about KM17.  On the trip back, we spotted another one, a big male this time, in close to the same spot.

The next morning, we went out moose spotting again, this time going east with the intention of heading to Whitney to show Chris the high water levels.  On the way back towards Mew Lake, across from the Pog Lake Campground entrance, we saw Hydro employees and a truck driver watching a male moose.  We pulled over and walked right up to about 10 feet from him and he completely ignored us.  When the truck driver pulled away it startled the moose and he ran back a bit, but came back to his drinking hole a few minutes later.

Back at camp, we made a late breakfast and packed up the yurt to head home.  Along the way we stopped at Ragged Rapids Provincial Park, a day use only park just outside the west gate.  Chris and I had stopped before and only ever checked out the bottom trail, and so we didn't realize the falls is actually pretty big.  With a crazy amount of water rushing over it, it was kind of scary.  Even scarier, Chris and I ended up scrambling down the cliff and shooting pics from closer to the bottom of the falls. I saw on the Friends of Algonquin FB page that others had done the same, only they used safety harnesses which would have been smart (had I even owned any)  It was pretty tense going, especially since if you slipped you'd fall into frothy, freezing water and probably have no chance of surviving it.

All in all, it was a great trip.  We saw lots of wildlife, which is a rarity for us.  We always find it strange that in the park we see hardly anything, then on the way home, see tons of deer and other animals closer to Haliburton.  We also took a lot of pictures, saw some impressive sights (thanks to the flooding) even though a lot of the side roads and trails were actually closed.

MENU
Lunch day 1 - Grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies
Dinner day 1 - rustic vegetable ragout with rice and caeser salad
Breakfast day 2 - Red River Cereal, bagels, toast, coffee
Lunch day 2 - pita pizza
Dinner day 2 - stir fry vegetables  with noodles and caeser salad
Breakfast day 3 - french toast, hot chocolate pancakes, fried potatoes, maple baked beans, bacon

WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS
Moose
Fox
Deer
Wolf
Wild Turkey
Vultures
Canadian Geese
American Black Ducks
Common Mergansers
White Throated Sparrow
Great Blue Herron
Great Grey Owl
Beaver
Crow
Common Flicker

Trip Log: Mew Lake March 28-30, 2013

First camping trip of the year!  And a fabulous birthday present for me.  I'm thinking I should make this a new tradition, to go camping for my birthday.

We'd been planning this trip for quite a while, since before Christmas at least.  Last year for Easter weekend, we spent a night in a yurt at Mew Lake, but this year, all the yurts were booked, so we thought we'd take a chance and see how well camping in mum and dad's tent trailer with the electric heater would be.  I couldn't see it being much different than hot tenting, except we wouldn't have to be up most of the night stoking the fire.

Trip Log: Mew Lake, Aug 20-22, 2012

This trip was supposed to happen at the end of July, when my brother was home from California, but we had to reschedule, and unfortunately, he didn't get to go.  He missed out.  We had a really great time, and we ate so much food, I think I probably gained ten pounds, if not more.

Because we weren't very organized, we didn't get to the park until after four.  We had two sites, both on the water and while we weren't expecting them to be great, we were pleasantly surprised.  There wasn't much shade, but they were large enough and we had fun stargazing while we sat around the fire.  We set up our tents, then started on dinner.  Now, I should tell you, this trip was all about the dutch ovens.  Mum and I each took a dinner and a breakfast and had to come up with a meal.

Dinner for night one was spiced pork tenderloins, cheesy au gratin potatoes and orange chocolate dump cake.  The dessert was a complete experiment.  See, I've read tons of variations on the "dump cake" for a dutch oven...and made an apple spice one for my oven's maiden voyage, but I wanted to try one with chocolate cake.  I think all I ever saw were ones made with cherry pie fill, then chocolate cake mix and sprite or butter pads on top.  I don't like cherry pie...hate the stuff.  But I do like orange flavoured chocolate so I started to think....hmmmm....I'll post the recipe and results in a separate entry.

While mum and I cooked, Chris and the kids played baseball and Chris worked on untangling the fishing rods. He also made an attempt at fly fishing from the beach at our site, mostly just to work on his casting technique.

8", 10" and deep 12" ovens, making dinner

Now, I should confess, I was giggling a lot while we made dinner.  We had three dutch ovens going, and had them stacked...it made us look like we really knew what we were doing.  I refused to believe the food would suck. How could it, when the pots looked so cool stacked up like that?  Lucky for us, everything was yummy, even the kids went back for several helpings and pretty much scraped the pot of potatoes clean.  As for the cake?  It sort of became like a pudding cake, you  know, the kind that makes it's own gooey sauce?  It tasted good, and the kids scraped the pot clean of dessert as well.

Chris and I saw a rabbit when we biked the garbage down to the bins.

Dad had gotten a fire going, while we were cooking dinner, so the kids toasted a few marshmallows and went to bed.  It should also be mentioned that we had three dogs with us on this trip.  My parent's dog, Lucky, hates people on bicycles...not sure why, but he goes nuts when he sees them.  Also, he barks every time someone walks by our site.  In this we were lucky because there was hardly anyone in the section of Mew Lake where our sites were, so there wasn't many people out at night.

Our dogs are old, and don't bark at anything.  Dixie has been pretty frail lately, but she loves to camp because she can spend all day with Chris, and sleep beside him at night too.  Kenobi just likes to be in the back of the SUV or in the tent.  We were sort of worried that a camping trip might do Dixie in, but she was fine.  She mostly slept in the tent, but a few times she ventured down to the water to splash around.

At about 2 in the morning, we heard a commotion from the people to the left of our site.  Dad got out of the tent and scanned the area with the flashlight, and saw several raccoons trying to get into the other camper's truck.  He had one of those soft covers on it.  We didn't give it much thought because two of the raccoons had come to sniff around the tent Chris and I were sharing with the dogs (the kids were with mum and dad in the big tent next door) The dogs had spilled a handful of kibble on the ground and the raccoons were cleaning it up.  Lucky was barking like crazy at the sound of animals outside the tent...Dixie and Kenobi didn't stop snoring.

Half an hour later, the park warden pulled up to our neighbours and asked if they'd called in a bear.  The guy said he had, and I lay there listening to them talk for about ten minutes while the second ranger did a walk around to see if the bear was still there.  Now...dad had seen raccoons on the truck...I can't imagine them being there if a bear was there too, but the next morning, I talked to our neighbour and he said the rangers had said it was definitely a bear.

Who was right?  Well, the other camper hadn't seen a bear, and for an animal that had been ripping and tearing at the soft cover of a pick up for half an hour, it didn't do much damage (bears will rip one to shreds pretty quickly) Also, it didn't eat much, just some bread and a few nibbles of dog kibble.  Did the ranger tell the guy it was a bear to scare him into storing his food in the cab of the truck? (please note, a soft cover on your truck isn't considered bear proof, so don't count on it to deter a scavenging animal, even smaller ones...)  Or is my dad's eyesight really bad and he mistook 3 raccoons for one small bear? I know it was racoons outside our site.  Chris and I saw watched them eating for a while. I guess we'll never know. Either way, the guy and his two daughters will have a story to tell their friends about their trip to Algonquin.

Early morning at Mew Lake

The next morning, it was chilly and there was a bit of fog on the lake when I got up at around 6:30.  Since nobody else was up, I took Kenobi for a little walk, then sat on the picnic table and watched a few early risers paddle their canoes around the lake through the fog.  This is something I've always wanted to do, but whenever I get out there, the fog seems to disappear.

Mum and Dad usually don't sleep in, and we had breakfast on the go by 7:30.  The original recipe for my breakfast was called "Girl Scout's Breakfast" and was basically a frittata made in the dutch oven.  It was yummy and very filling.  The kids didn't have any, they don't like eggs, and had Cheerios instead.

Chris took the kids fishing while breakfast was cooking, then after we ate, he cleaned up while I took Mum, Dad and the kids to the water fall where Chris and I had hiked to during our yurt stay in April. The water is much lower now, as expected, and rather than one large water fall, there are two smaller ones with a nice sitting spot in the middle.  Squatchie immediately took off his shoes and started jumping from rock to rock, exploring the other side of the river.  He's like his father that way, nimble and adventurous.  Bubbie is like me...a little more cautious.  Her explorations were less rock hopping, and more like an imitation of Smeagol from the Lord of The Rings movies...so we have now dubbed Smeagolling a new word, defined as the act of crawling your way over rocks in the middle of a river.

When we got back to camp, Chris was standing waist deep in the lake, fishing and not having much luck. Chris and I made lunch, pizzas in the dutch ovens, while Mum, Dad and the kids went to the Two River's Store for treats.  The kids had pepperoni pizza while the adults had chicken fajita pizza.  The kids both picked off the pepperoni because they said the kind I'd gotten was too spicy.  If they'd told me that after I made them pizza with it a few nights ago, I wouldn't' have bothered packing it along.  Along with our pizza, Mum had made a chickpea salad which was very good. I'll have to get the recipe for it before she forgets which book she found it in.

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Mum and I biked the garbage out and went around to the far end of the radio free/pet free section of Mew Lake to take a picture of our sites from across the lake.  We told the kids to watch for us and wave.  The canoeist nearby thought the kids were waving at them, so kept waving back.  Then Squatchie started dancing and wiggling his butt.  I'm not entirely sure the canoeists knew what to make of that.

The plan was for Chris and I to hike the main loop of the Track and Tower interpretive trail but after eating so much food, my stomach was a little upset and it was raining off and on, so Chris ended up having a nap.  The rest of us went to check out the Opeongo Outfitters and get ice cream (I know...but my stomach felt better by the time we decided to leave...) I got the kids Algonquin Park buffs, and they had fun figuring out all the ways people wear them on Survivor. When we got back to the site, Chris was awake and was attempting to carve a gnome from a piece of wood.  The current result looks slightly demonic, not at all the result he was going for.

For Mum's turn at dinner, she made Chicken and Rice casserole. It was a really simple meal to put together, and though it doesn't look stunning in the pot, it's very yummy.  The kids took one look at it and asked if there was anything else, but we made them try at least a little, and if they didn't like it they could have a hotdog. They ended up fighting over the last half of chicken breast, and again, scraped the bottom of the pot to get the last of the rice. Chris and I did bike to the water falls while mum's dinner cooked.

Mum also made a pie for dessert.  It was a simple- canned pie fill and frozen pie crust but she fancied it up with a little decorative cutting to the top crust.

Mum's apple pie. Yum!

The stars were really amazing the second night.  The skies had cleared and we saw several shooting stars.  We also saw a really bright light move really quickly across the sky, about 10 times faster than a plane, then it would get dim and disappear before reappearing and heading back the opposite way.

There were no bears or raccoons the second night, of course we were all pretty tired from being awake listening to them the night before, so maybe there were and we just didn't hear them. We did hear coyotes across the lake though. I woke up to the sound of a fire going in Mum and Dad's site at around 7:30, so I went to investigate and get some coffee going.

Very foggy on the lake the second morning

The fog was a lot thicker than the previous morning, even though I'd gotten up an hour later. It was also pretty chilly.  The kids fished from the shore (right behind where the little blue and white tent is, there's a small beach) but didn't get any nibbles.  In fact, they didn't have much luck at all the entire trip.

By this time, we'd all pretty much glutted ourselves on food for two days and weren't all that excited about breakfast.  The kids had Cheerios and rather than the recipe Mum had planned to make, we inverted the lid for her dutch oven on the grate of the fire and cooked up the sausages, then some canned, sliced potatoes.  We used the pot part of the dutch oven to cook scrambled eggs with some onion and green pepper, then made breakfast burritos with a little salsa.  Despite us all being so stuffed, there was only a little bit of leftovers to share with the dogs.

The kids were really excited to rock hop with their dad since he hadn't been with us the last time, so we biked back after breakfast.  Squatchie fell in...then had fun sitting on the ledges in the waterfall.  He ended up wearing his buff like a tube top, like the women on survivor do, and Bubbie was doing the same thing...Chris kept joking about how pretty our two daughters were.

It didn't take us long to pack up.  We stopped at the Portage Store on Canoe Lake to get ice cream and check out their store.  The restaurant there is very cool, and we will definitely head there for a lunch on our next trip.  Also, it was really neat seeing just how many canoes were on the lake.  I'd read that it was the busiest canoe launch spot in the park, but I hadn't really imagined it being like that, and that was on a Wednesday!  I'd love to be there around noon on a Friday to see all the canoes heading out for the start of a back country trip.

Trip Log: Mew Lake, Algonquin Park - April 9-10 2012

For the last few years, my mum and I have talked about spending Christmas in a yurt in Algonquin Park, but to be honest, as much as I want to do it, I was worried about just how warm it would be in a yurt at that time of year. So we decided to try an Easter trip, sort of a test run. With the warm weather in March, I half expected summer temperatures for the trip, but instead we were blessed with cold wind, rain, snow and hail.

We arrived at the yurt at about 1:30, a little early for check in but decided to see if it was empty yet and it was. Immediately the kids were poking around, picking a bunk, ready to explore and find moose. We'd seen one on the way to Mew Lake, and with bets having been placed on how many we'd see for the whole trip, we were hoping to see a lot.



We unloaded and set up the beds, cooked up some hamburgers and then headed to the visitors centre (although we've been through it dozens of times, we still go to check out the bookstore and see if we can see any wildlife from the viewing platform. We then drove to the East Gate, and took a detour down to the Opeongo Store. It wasn't open, obviously, but we hadn't been down there before and wanted to check it out.

When we arrived back at the campground, dad and Chris took a nap while mum and I took the kids on a bike ride to scope out all the other sites. It was drizzly and cold, and in retrospect, probably not a great idea considering the kids and I were getting over colds. All three of us are back to the worst stage of the cold now.

I have to say I was actually impressed with Mew Lake. The sites are, for the most part, large, and much more private than other campgrounds we've stayed at in Algonquin. The ones along the waterfront in the electrical section especially are nice. The only issue you might have is with the highway noise. There are a lot of big trucks roaring their way down highway 60, and you can definitely hear them.



We got dinner started (Pork roast cooked in mum's dutch oven) and while that was cooking, Chris and I took a little hike to see if we could find the waterfall someone told him about. From the garbage area at Mew Lake, there is a trail that leads either to the Track and Tower Trail, or to the Old Railway Bike Trail and the Old Airfield. To get to the water fall, you want to take the track and tower trail until you come to a 4 way crossroads where the trail passes the Highland Backpacking Trail. Turn left. It's only a short distance and you'll hear the water before you see it. There's a bridge, and a 50m portage for those travelling the Madawaska River. There were a lot of wolf tracks on the trail, as well as wolf scat. The signs in the bathrooms indicate there has been a wolf hanging around, who has lost it's fear of humans. We didn't see him though, which was disappointing on one hand and a huge relief on the other.




It was almost dark by the time we got back, and with muddy trail and drizzly rain we were wet, cold and hungry. Dinner was ready by the time we got back, Pork roast, carrots cooked in foil, salad, minute rice and biscuits. After dinner, the kids pretty much fell straight asleep so we all ended up going to bed early.

During the night all the adults swore they heard a train go by, complete with train whistle. No trains still run through the park, so either it had to be a large truck with a very odd horn, our imagination, or a ghost train...it was very strange. All of us heard growls outside the yurt in the early morning as well. I thought I heard a dog whimpering. The good thing about the yurt was that with the heater, when it cut in, you couldn't hear the highway noise for a few minutes at a time. On the other hand, it left me with a fear that I'd step out of the yurt in the middle of the night to go to the outhouse, and walk straight into a pack of wolves or a few bears...silly, I know but if you can't hear, you have no idea what might be out there.

It was cold, rainy and windy the next morning and it took forever to cook breakfast. It was almost lunch time when we sat down to eat our eggs, bacon, and maple beans. After packing up we headed out to see if we could spot any more moose, and saw only one, near where we'd seen one the day before. We drove home in a mix of snow, rain and hail, eager for some Tim Horton's coffee.