The Campfire! My home away from home.

January 15, to 17, Valens Conservation Area

   What a difference a week makes! Last week we were up against snow and temps that dipped down to -25c with wind chill. This weekend sure was different!

    I left Woodbridge about 2:30 pm and struck out across highway 401 for a winter adventure with a group from www.waterwalker.ca and www.outdooradventurecanada.com . After a lazy 45 minute drive I pulled into the winter campsites at Valens and found a few of the guys already set up and Kim hard at work tryin to whittle down the "deposit" the "Wood Fairy" had left for us that afternoon.

Quickly started setting up camp and before the tent was even up got myself in trouble, the park superintendant drove by and chastised me for having my axe stuck in the picnic table on my site. Oooops! I apologized for my newbie-ness and finished setting up camp. Headed back to the main group and spent a relaxing afternoon shootin the breeze, catching up with a couple of old friends, and getting aquainted with a couple of new ones. As darkness fell we got a short chorus of howls and yips from the coyotes out in the feild beside us. Quite a nice night to relax with a warm fire and temps hovering around -4c. Got a little hungry so dropped a nice  peppered ribeye onto the grill, and dropped it into the coals tryin to flip it. Good for a chuckle as I tried to save my dinner. What the heck, its camping, fished it out of the coals and slapped the steak on a bun! Hit the sack around 10 pm and settled under the sleepin bags for a surprisingly cozy nights sleep.

   The next morning remained overcast and a little cool, but no where near the temps of last week. We all took our time, several gallons of hot coffee were whipped up and we relaxed around the fire, telling more tall tales enjoying our breakfasts. Around 10 am the group broke up a little to do some individual stuff. Mike headed off for a hike, and since we didn't have enough snow for snowshoes, I headed out for a solo hike myself.  This area was littered with animal tracks, coyote, racoon, beaver, rabbit, squirrel and a few others I couldn't positively identify, I think they may have been porcupine.

I bumped into Paul, Tracy and Obi hiking the same trail from the opposite direction so we stopped for a short powwow and a smoke. Got headed back down the trail and just soaked up the fresh sweet air and the crunch of snow under foot.  There is nothing that can compare to being alone in the bush, even if its just a short hike along trail in a popular conservation area. Its invigorating and relaxing all at the same time. Got back to camp to find we had a few more visitors who had dropped in for an hour and a couple that dropped by to stay the night.

Spent the rest of Saturday hanging around the fire, eating, and chewing the fat with the group! Temps dropped down a little more this night, the thermometer in my car read -8 around 10 pm. Just cool enough for me to finally put on my overcoat. Stayed up as long as I could and left Tracy sittin alone by the fire at midnight. Snuggled down for a good nap that was interrupted about 5 am by a bad case of EBS...Explosive Bladder Syndrome.....crawled out of the tent to take care of business and holy cow, the temps had gone up over the past few hours to near the freezing mark, by 8 am when I finally crawled out of the tent again, it actually felt like a spring thaw! Took my sweet time this morning, havin a coffee with the guys before breaking camp. We hung in till about 11 am then headed our separate ways, till the next gathering that is. I really hope to make it to the spring event, but in the meantime I have to look for a chance to steal another winter weekend in the bush...alone this time!

For more pics visit the photo gallery....  http://www.thecampfireonline.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=7946497

Kirk

I know I have gone over this before... and if you have never done a solo camp to an area where you have never been before, and go during a time when the "Two-Leggers" are least likely to show up....then you owe it to yourself to do so. Every solo brings new challenges, and allowes you to see, hear and feel things that just would not be possible if there were other campers along to occupy your attention. And this trip was no exception...

This trip should have happened 3 weeks ago, but thanks to an emergency at work and some extremely bad weather, the trip never got off the ground, so I had to wait till now to go. With the forecast calling for 32 degree celcius temps and bright sunshine, I pulled away from work at 5 pm to hit the open highway, and slam head on into rush hour traffic!!! This should have only been about a two and a half hour drive but lucky me, I got onto highway 400 and ran into nasty gridlock that saw me spend the first hour of the drive down to speeds of only 40kph on a road that should have seen me driving 100 or more.

 So once again, when I thought I would have plenty of time I found myself racing the setting sun. I arrived at the Bentshoe Lake put in  around 8:30 pm....quickly loaded my canoe and set off for site 43. I had intentionally reserved a site close to the put in as an "In case" measure and was on site by 8:45. But man was it warm....temps must have still been in the high 20's and by the time I had made camp and set up a little firewood for the evening fire I was drenched in sweat...and being eaten alive by the bugs. Hosed myself down several times with Muskol but I was sweating the damn stuff off and had to regularly stop and stand in the smoke from my fire to get relief from the bugs. By about 10 pm the bugs and heat started to subside and the full moon poked itself over the horizon. Sping Peepers, bullfrogs and countless birds filled the air with beautiful spring song as I sat by the fire to relax.

Up and at em by 5:30 am, made a quick pot of coffee and launched the canoe to do a litle exporing. Panfish were biting like crazy and within an hour I had boated about 20 or more pumpkinseed...not a challenging fish I admit but still lots of fun to catch. Saw quite a few turtles on my paddle, including this guy sunning himself on a log.

 Not sure how warm he needs to be cause by 8 am it was already over 20 degrees celcius and warming up fast! By 9:30 am I landed back at camp and stoked up a fire...a nice breakfast of ribeye steak and baked potato refreshed a tired body, but by noon the heat was unbearable so I pulled my campchair back under the pines and napped while the day burned  around me. By 5 pm I got out for a short sweaty hike around site......snapped a few pics and returned to camp, put on  my life jacket and jumped in the lake to cool myself down...spent an hour sitting in the shadow of an old growth white pine up to my neck in water, just loving it. Made a light supper of spam and bannock and did a little more fishing from the rocks, caught a couple more panfish and then just sat back to enjoy an absolutely volcanic sunset!!!

Called it an early night again and crashed.....it was so warm I just lay on top of my sleeping bag...didn't need to get inside it the entire night!Did a lot of scratching tho...the bugs have left my ankles and arms raw...I swear...I emptied a second bottle of Muskol 30% and was getting bitten right thru the chemicular protection..again prolly cause I was sweating the damn stuff off! Staying hydrated was another challenge on this trip, and about 4 am I woke up with severe cramps in the back of both thighs, felt like someone had tightened down a set of vice grips on the large muscle running down the back of the leg and clamped it tight, got out and walked it off and downed a liter of water....crawled back into my tent for a little more sleep. Woke up ...AGAIN.... around 7am this time by a loud ruckus by a Raven. Actually saw the raven fly off and thought it weird that his face was white. Did some fishing off the rocks and by 8 am was ready to make some coffee..... set up the stove and headed down the shoreline to where I had hung my food bag....and discovered why the ravens were making a ruckus. They had found my food bag and had figured out how to open the velcro closure on the top ..... and boy what a mess they made! They really seemed to have enjoyed my bannock mix....maybe it was the salt and all the lard I had mixed in...anyways, that was the bannock I was gonna cook for breakfast! Dang you Ravens!

A pic of my foodbag with the top open.....

You can see two silvery things in the bush two the left, potatoes wrapped in foil and my container of butter...what a mess!

So ...enjoyed a nice coffee and a little beef jerky for breaky....then ever so lazily struck down camp and paddled out to my car.

For more pictures visit http://www.thecampfireonline.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=9125374

Kirk