Jackfish Lake
Instead of hitting the books and spending reading week as academia would prefer, Emily and I headed for the Saddle Hills north of Spring Lake to the Trapper's Cabin on Jackfish Lake. Here are a few journal entries and photos depicting our experience.
Preparations: February 20th 2017:
As part of our preparations for the two day trip, Emily and I baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. We came to eat far too much raw cookie, which speaks not only to my weak willpower, but also to my mother's delicious recipe. Luckily, I also managed to shovel in a few baked cookies as well, justifying my gluttony with the secret intent to carbo-load despite the fact that we were to ski a whole 10km the next day. Such a distance hardly requires a few face-fulls of cookie the evening beforehand.
The Voyage. Tuesday, February 21st 2017:
We set off at about 1:15pm from the Spring Lake boat launch and hit the trail. After following Dad's snowshoe tracks for a good hour and a bit, I asked Emily "Emily? Does that open area look like a lake to you?" Emily: "yeah, I was wondering about that too." It turned out that my following Dad's tracks took us on a detour nearly to the shore of Squaw Lake! We secretly had intentions of stopping there for hot chocolate and trail mix, but I was planning on approaching it from a different angle after passing through the junction, not by trotting through the woods randomly. Anyway, we followed a trail that I suspected led to the junction. When we arrived we had our hot chocolate and trail mix there instead since we basically saw the lake with our earlier detour.
At the junction we had been skiing for about 1.5 hours. It was about 2:45pm when I set my eyes on the junction antler and the sign prohibiting ATVs.
A while later, down the number 3 trail to the lake, Emily's binding snapped off her ski. In my head I was thinking "alright, at least it's an easy fix and we'll be off soon enough." But when I heard, "oh! Some piece of my binding just flew off into the snow!", I was dreading having the poor thing experience half-skiing, half-scooting along, not only the rest of the way to the cabin, but the WHOLE way back tomorrow.
Luckily, it was a quick fix and off we went again, quite merrily I might add, all the way until we were in sight of the cabin. Yeeehaww!!!!
We made it! We got changed, started a fire, lit the stove in the cabin, and melted some snow for tea. Then Emily cooked dinner and I serenaded on the ukulele. After eating, we sang awhile. I plucked away at the ukulele until about 8pm, at which time we thought we would get ready for bed. We felt fairly tired and thought we might do some reading before bed. So, we stuffed the stove full and hopped into our bags.
The Return. Wednesday, February 22nd 2017:
At the time I am writing this, Emily and I laugh as she hits her coffee mug violently against the top row of her teeth. What a dork.
We made it back to the boat launch in exactly 2 hours today! What a fantastic time we had. The tour back was mostly uneventful except for one incident. As I was sliding down a small descent I came upon a large root, and in my attempt to slow down, my ski came clean off leaving me helplessly unbalanced and destined for some time on my ass. I was much more worried about the ukulele. It was clipped on the right side of my pack, on which side I ended up falling. After a quick examination, I got back up with cold fingers and pushed on.
And here we are back at home sipping coffee and digesting our salmon bagels with another urge for adventure slowly building inside of us.
I wonder what will be next....
The pictures aren't exactly in order but enjoy nonetheless! Cheers!
Preparations: February 20th 2017:
As part of our preparations for the two day trip, Emily and I baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. We came to eat far too much raw cookie, which speaks not only to my weak willpower, but also to my mother's delicious recipe. Luckily, I also managed to shovel in a few baked cookies as well, justifying my gluttony with the secret intent to carbo-load despite the fact that we were to ski a whole 10km the next day. Such a distance hardly requires a few face-fulls of cookie the evening beforehand.
The Voyage. Tuesday, February 21st 2017:
We set off at about 1:15pm from the Spring Lake boat launch and hit the trail. After following Dad's snowshoe tracks for a good hour and a bit, I asked Emily "Emily? Does that open area look like a lake to you?" Emily: "yeah, I was wondering about that too." It turned out that my following Dad's tracks took us on a detour nearly to the shore of Squaw Lake! We secretly had intentions of stopping there for hot chocolate and trail mix, but I was planning on approaching it from a different angle after passing through the junction, not by trotting through the woods randomly. Anyway, we followed a trail that I suspected led to the junction. When we arrived we had our hot chocolate and trail mix there instead since we basically saw the lake with our earlier detour.
At the junction we had been skiing for about 1.5 hours. It was about 2:45pm when I set my eyes on the junction antler and the sign prohibiting ATVs.
A while later, down the number 3 trail to the lake, Emily's binding snapped off her ski. In my head I was thinking "alright, at least it's an easy fix and we'll be off soon enough." But when I heard, "oh! Some piece of my binding just flew off into the snow!", I was dreading having the poor thing experience half-skiing, half-scooting along, not only the rest of the way to the cabin, but the WHOLE way back tomorrow.
Luckily, it was a quick fix and off we went again, quite merrily I might add, all the way until we were in sight of the cabin. Yeeehaww!!!!
We made it! We got changed, started a fire, lit the stove in the cabin, and melted some snow for tea. Then Emily cooked dinner and I serenaded on the ukulele. After eating, we sang awhile. I plucked away at the ukulele until about 8pm, at which time we thought we would get ready for bed. We felt fairly tired and thought we might do some reading before bed. So, we stuffed the stove full and hopped into our bags.
The Return. Wednesday, February 22nd 2017:
At the time I am writing this, Emily and I laugh as she hits her coffee mug violently against the top row of her teeth. What a dork.
We made it back to the boat launch in exactly 2 hours today! What a fantastic time we had. The tour back was mostly uneventful except for one incident. As I was sliding down a small descent I came upon a large root, and in my attempt to slow down, my ski came clean off leaving me helplessly unbalanced and destined for some time on my ass. I was much more worried about the ukulele. It was clipped on the right side of my pack, on which side I ended up falling. After a quick examination, I got back up with cold fingers and pushed on.
And here we are back at home sipping coffee and digesting our salmon bagels with another urge for adventure slowly building inside of us.
I wonder what will be next....
The pictures aren't exactly in order but enjoy nonetheless! Cheers!
Ucanbuyrubberukoolayleez I believe
ReplyDelete.....life must be borin...shapeupmatt...urlettinureaderzdown!����
ReplyDelete