Saturday, September 23, 2006

Algonquin

What do you do if you're feeling lazy and have nothing better to do? You take a walk in the park. Yesterday I did just that. I decided to drive up north and explore rockAlgonquin Park, Ontario's oldest provincial park. It covers an arearoc of about 7,700 square kilometers with over 2,400 lakes and is home to thousands of wildlife species such as the black bear, dear, beaver, moose, lake trout and eastern red wolf. This ain't your mama's park. It's essentially a large area of natural forest. Getting there was easy enough, and was half the fun. From highway 401, you take highway 62 which cuts north through Hastings County and the towns of Belleville, Madoc, Bancroff, and Maynooth. Then you take highway 127, then highway 60 which leads to the east gate of the park. At certain points of highway 62, there are recessed areas that are basically rest stops minus the gasoline station, store, and fastfood restaurant. Instead, there are one or two picnic tables, a small bathroom, and a wonderful view of a lake. That's cuz it's right beside a lake. So if you wanna take a swim or go canoeing, you can do so. I took a stop at one of these cuz nature called, then just chilled for a few minutes by Robinson's Lake. It was sweet.
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Robinson's Lake



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Notice the houses or cabins at the other side. Man, they have it good. Having rested up a bit, I decided to continue my journey. Every few minutes my eyes would leave the road to look at a lake ... there were so many! After about an hour and a half I reached the town of Madoc. Later on, I reached Bancroff, then Maynooth. These are little towns with almost nothing in them. If you asked someone from these towns what they did for fun on a Friday night, he or she would probably say 'eat ice cream at a local ice cream shop' or 'rent a movie'. If you ever watched the movie "Cars", then these towns would remind you of Radiator Springs. Downtown Bancroff in particular looked like Radiator Springs. It took me a while but I was able to get onto highway 127 then highway 60. Highway 60 runs through the perimeter of Algonquin park so the side of the road is lined with the park's multicolored shrubery.
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Beware of Moose

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After buying a day permit at the east gate entrance, I headed for the visitor centre. The visitor centre has an exhibit on the history and features of Algonquin park, as well as a giftshop, a theatre, and a viewing deck.
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View from the Visitor Centre


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Lots of stuff can be done at the park such as camping, hiking, canoeing, fishing, biking, and skiing and dogsledding in the winter. Since I'm just a novice at hiking, I decided to trek through 2 manageable day trails: Booth's Rock Trail and Beaver Pond Trail. Booth's Rock Trail is a 5.1 kilometer loop that takes about 3 hours to complete.

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Trees on the way to the trailhead

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Rock cliff and waterway on the way to the trailhead

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Booth's Rock trailhead

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The first thing I noticed when I started was that I was really in a forest and that it was possible that some animal would come out and eat me or that some psycho would jump out, shoot me then bury my body deep in the woods. Oh well! The hike started easy enough. In some parts of the trail, there were signs of past human ativity, particularly logging, that happened in the late 1800's before the park was legislated to be protected.

Trail path


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Rosepond Lake

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My first stop was at Rosepond Lake. This little lake is neatly hidden away and is surrounded by Black Spruce. As I continued though the trail, it was hard not to notice how vivid the color of the flora was. Nothing needed photoshopping and everything looked 'fresh'. Before getting to the most difficult part of the trail, I visited Gordon Lake.

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Forest Canopy

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Ground Moss

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Gordon Lake

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According to my trail guide, Smallmouth Bass were introduced to this lake because they were such celebrated game fish. Unfortunately, their introduction caused the dissapearance of Brook Trout, a much scarcer species of fish. I didn't notice any fish though so perhaps, they cancelled each other out? This lake felt creepy for some reason, so I quickly scooted away and continued.

From that point on, the hike became much more difficult. The trail was now steeper and as I walked with aching muscles, it reminded me of a hike I did at Mt. Sto. Tomas in Northern Luzon when I was in gradeschool. All my effort would soon be rewarded though with a breathtaking view on top of a steep ridge of Rock Lake and the surrounding landscape. Now this was the kind of place where I could just chill, eat a burger and have a beer. The ridge had no railings so I was extra careful not to get too close to the edge.

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Rock Lake from the trail's viewing ridge





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Fall colors

While there, I started hearing some knocking sounds. Someone or something was knocking on wood. It was a woodpecker perched on a nearby tree. I also heard something awefully strange, something like a howl. I'm not sure but if it was from a wolf, then gosh darn it call me lucky!

Hey Woody, waddup?

After spending time on the viewing ridge, I continued on the trail. Unfortunately, I had lost my trail guide, so I just followed the trail blindly hoping not to get lost. Consequently, I missed one of the paths that would have lead me to the former estate of one Judge George Barclay, and an abandoned railway that used to be the busiest in Canada. That was a bummer. Next time, I'll go check it out. I continued on a path that brought me to the perimeter of Rock Lake so I was able to get to the water and sit on some of the beach rocks. Let me just say that when in the forest, the only things you hear are the swaying of the trees, the buzz of small insects, and the chirping of birds. On the other hand, if you're by a lake near the forest, you hear all that plus the howling of the wind and the splash of the waves. Pure serenity.

Rock Lake





Me getting lost

After a bit of time, I felt the need to pee, so I picked myself up and went on. No I wasn't gonna pee in the forest. Didn't wanna anger any engkanto that might be living there so I held that thought and began reciting "tabi tabi po!" even if they didn't understand Tagalog ... unless some of them were immigrants from the Philippines. I soon reached the end of the trail after hiking for approximately 2 and a half hours. After relieving myself in one of the portable toilets, I went back to the visitor centre, had a merienda of beef kebabs and rice pilaf, then immediately drove to the trailhead of Beaver Pond Trail.

Beaver Pond trailhead

Beaver Pond trail path

Beaver Pond Trail is a 2 kilometer loop that passes through two beaver ponds. Hoping to catch a glimpse of a beaver, I hurriedly walked through the trail to the first beaver pond. Nope, no beaver. I hiked a bit more and reached an impressive beaver dam. I still didn't see any beaver, but the size of the dam and the quality of construction would make any engineer proud. This dam basically created an entire lake.

A Beaver Pond

A Beaver Dam

Amikeus Lake - a beaver made lake

Further along I reached a cliff that gave a fine view of the beaver created environment - the beaver pond and beaver meadow below the pond. I still hadn't sighted a single beaver so I was a bit annoyed. Only then did the trail guide say that the best time to see them was some time in the evening from a vantage point overlooking the pond. Well, I didn't want to be in the forest at night so I decided to finish the trail and just catch the damn critter another day.

Atop the beaver viewing cliff

Beaver pond and meadow




After finishing Beaver Pond Trail I made my way home. This expedition was a lotta fun and it gave me a pretty good workout too. Sometimes, people forget that nature could provide as much entertainment as anything from a TV set or a nightclub. Once in a while it's nice to get out of the city and explore the forest and woodlands. The only thing a person needs is a pair of comfy shoes and the willingness to get a little rugged. Next time, I'd like to see some moose or that elusive beaver. They're bound to be in at least one of the 10 other trails I haven't traversed. Maybe I could go canoeing, or maybe camping. Or I could bring a bike. Or maybe I could go skiing, or dogsledding ... now that would be awesome. So many possibilities! Who knew you could do so much in a park?

2 Comments:

Blogger Blake said...

Moose?? What the hell is that, some sort of nocturnal Thai animal? I don't like the sound of him at all, he better not come after me. Nice pictures, by the way.

12:42 PM  
Blogger Extra Virgin Chef said...

What a wonderful way to get a workout. Thanks also for dropping by at my blog.

7:42 PM  

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