Snowy River Banks

Ahh... beautiful winter

Goose on the loose

Its funny, nearly every time I've gone to Caledon since the beginning of October the weather has been inclement... so here is a picture of a goose trying to fly in strong winds over the 24. It was fun driving that day - I actually slid a bit on a hill doing under 10 km/hr. Nothing happened because I was really nearly stopped, but I was glad to get the winter tires on the following week.

Gabe taking notes at Wilmot

I don't know what I would have done with Gabe - he kindly gave up about 6 weekends to help me complete my fieldwork this fall including taking some great Coarse Woody Debris Pics

Periscope Up

Here is a nice little mushroom viewing the world from a log (CWD) suspended over one of my field sites. Measuring the characteristics of coarse woody debris was one of the major things I did in the field this year. So I thought I'd catch you all up by posting some field pictures over the next few days. Hopefully, I'll have some nice skiing ones to post by Monday.

In the meantime, it is snowing, but the weather is threatening to turn wet sooner than hoped - so join me in begging the artic air mass to get its but down here in time to make gobbs of beautiful fluffy snow. Then it should hang around for a while so we can keep the snow in question!

David Usher Rocks The Horseshoe

At least I think it is the Horseshoe, it might have been the Mod Club or well somewhere. It was a bar in Toronto near to the old Maple Leaf Gardens. The Concert was awesome. Gabe took most of the pictures, but I thought this one could be mine because it looks like whoever took it was shorter than the people in front of them.. but I could by wrong... so credit possibly to Gabe because I'm not sure I took any that weren't blurry. This is part of my catching up on the last few months on things other than my trip to Thunder Bay.

And I'm really having trouble with English this morning... sorry about the discombobulated post. Good concert - we met up with Geoff and Erin... it was a blast.

Tobogganing Lives On

One of the best parts of my christmas break was rediscovering my love for tobogganing. With private access to better hills and snow that my childhood ever knew (save maybe Lowville - but it was always crowded) - I had a blast and proved (to myself anyways) that all the new fangled sledding devices really can't beat the original wooden toboggan for speed and manouverability. Riding single, double and triple we blazed a trail down the hill - at one point with headlamps and moonlight only to guide us. It was just awesome and probably the best excercise I got the entire break too... running up the hill for the next slide down.

Skiing the Mulmer Hills in Mansfield

I needed to stop sitting behind my computer for a few hours so I drove up to Mansfield Outdoor Center and finally got some good cross country skiing in this year. Actually, noting the impending rain and above freezing temperatures forcast for most of the eastern half of Ontario.. I figured I'd better get out, because it could be weeks before there was skiing again. I did the 9.5 km blue trail - which starts off with a lot of hills... going up, coming down etc. However, a little ways in the terrain levels out and there are about 5 or 6 km of wonderful skiing in the woods. There was a nice couple who provided me some advice on good places to try skiing around here. I'd really like to go to Hardwood Hills, Wasage and Scenic Caves before the winter is out - truthfully... I'd really like to go to Algonquin Park, Silent Lake and the Gatineau and I wouldn't mind some skiing in Thunder Bay - but none of those are likely to happen - so I'll settle for the accomplishable. I finished up with an easy ski on the 2km orange loop that follows the edge of a river - but in the fading sun it was charming and I saw a doe, which was nice.

Its been years since I've skied much. Most of it came back - I'm sure my technique was never fabulous - but a lot of it is natural... the one thing I'm struggling with is hills which is funny - since I've done more down hill skiing in the last 10 years than cross country by a wide margin, but maybe that is the cause... I don't know how to ski down a narrow path on a hill with narrow skis. I was getting better by the end. I can snow plow okay, but I think my body purposely flops over when I get going to fast becuase I feel nervous about it. I think once I feel more confident about steering and turning and build up a few muscles I'll be okay. I will however stop skiing in jeans until I cut back on my falls significantly. They get wet and cold.

Last Trip Post

 

 

 

 

I guess like the hike, I'm just going nuts with the photo - I can't believe I'm actually all the way through my trip (in a posting sense). I was shocked at how busy Arrowhead was on the long weekend. I guess a lot of people come up from TO. Coincidently - they are holding the Muskoka Loppet there this weekend - although I won't be there yet. I've hardly been skiing yet, so I figured it would be persumptuous to make my first major ski trip to be a race. This weekend, I'm sincerely hoping to get out and do some skiing now that there is some snow and also to add some ski links to the blog.

For upcoming stories - well, I do have some back logged stuff - like the snowstorm in TO when our original trip to the Vinyl Cafe was in vain and some pretty wintery pics of the credit. I guess I'm going to have to get my butt in gear and take some new pictures.

Thanks for sharing my journey with my - I don't think I expected to still be posting so many months later... but it was a fantastic trip full of great moments, good lookouts for contemplation and some decent challanges...and back to my current challange for me.

Natural Beauty

I think I took as many pictures at Arrowhead as I had in the preceding day - there was a definate feeling of it being the last chance. I actually almost didn't stop, but I'm glad I did. Although the trail I did was only about 3 km, it was good get out and walk and enjoy the grade A colours.

Arrowhead Hike

My last breath of fall colours before heading back to the city on a calm, cool and overcast day.

The Beautiful Blue Yonder

 

View from the Tower

 

Here is the distant shoreline, visible from the tower. It was breathtaking - and just plain beautiful

Where the road leads and we follow

 

An afternoon ski, turned into a quick spontaneous trip (the kind where you end up somewhere with no change of clothes or toothpaste). Here we are up the tower near the Bruce Peninsula park tower

Final Stop Before Home

 

At some point I decided that I needed to be home before dark - that I'd had a lovely trip, but another night of camping and more driving just really wasn't in me - so home I went, but to compensate for not making it to Algonquin - I stopped at Arrowhead Park for one last short hike up and down the river - and for the first time in days I was somewhere crowded with people - which left me feeling grateful to the Park Warden for convincing me to stop and stay at Restoule where there were far fewer people. Still there were lots of beautiful natural things to take pictures of at Arrowhead.

I'm stopping my tale here for today - I'll leave shuffling through my 100 or so Arrowhead photos for later. But I wanted to make a few unrelated comments.

First - you will note that I broke the 10,000 hits barrier in my stats below (at least for one of the 2 counters). Secondly, you'll note that I added 2 new links - one to the vinyl cafe (which I was lucky enough to see at convocation hall last weekend and one to Dala - who was one of two musical guests on the vinyl cafe. There is some back story here as we were supposed to go the Sunday before we left for NB - but a snow storm whomped Toronto leaving it eerily quiet and the vinyl cafe cancelled. I do have some pictures of that which perhaps I'll get to post in a week as I start catching up to January.

Finally, you'll knote a knew knitting lynx section - I'm still working on this, but it'll take me a while to fully develop it.

I think that is all for now.

Cheers,

Jennith

Another Gratuitous picture of the Doe Lake Shoreline

 

The Glorious Doe Lake Birch Tree

 

Drapped in robes of gold this Doe Lake Icon never fails to tug at my heart-strings. I couldn't find the director, so my visit here was short - but I've rarely seen Doe in the fall.

Highway 11 Gas Station South of Burk's Falls

 

There is a restaurant/gas station where we used to get milk shakes at camp. (the name eluding me) - and it was also the place where I saw some of the best fall colours.

Mikisew Provincial Park

 

 

I think my intention was to park on the road and explore more, but I was definately ready for home at this point... so I took a couple of pictures of the enterance way and headed on to Burk's Falls and Doe Lake.

The road goes on

 

My mishap with the not so continous Rye Road ended me up on highway 11. I visited a little store in Trout Creek - asking after Thelma - but perhaps I have the wrong town. There was a huge dog show going on in the arena and dogs everywhere. I think in Sundridge (but possibly before) I ended up back on back roads and travelled around Eagle Lake - on roads that were a single lane of dirt in places... but again.. beautiful country

Quiet Lands and Yesterdays Farm

 

I suspect actually that this barn is still in use - but it made a great picture nestled in the back roads between highways 69 and 11. I did some good getting turned about - or rather finding that the roads on my map were not the same as the ones on the ground requiring me to adjust my route accordingly. I was heading through the back roads toward Doe Lake and Mikisew Provincial Park. It was quiet and peaceful and beautiful. I love backroads.

River in Restoule Park

 

 

My last day on my fantastic road trip was gloomy and foggy. Had it been sunny I would have redone the hike from the day before and take some pictures, but it wasn't so I opted for a short and easy little jaunt through the woods along this river between Stormy and Restoule Lakes.

I was up early enough that it was nearly deserted and I enjoyed the fall colours.

Restoule Lake

I'm on shaky ground with the name of the lake - there are actually 2 there are 2 lakes and this actually may be stormy lake. Here is the map - the little lake to the north is Stormy Lake and the larger lake to the south is Restoule Lake.

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