Rehearsal Camping

Only three more weeks until the trip to Nunavut. Which means we needed to have a 'rehearsal'. Liz gave me a call last week to see if I was free to camp this past weekend. Unfortunately, I did have plans on Saturday that I ended up cancelling (missing a BBQ at my cousin Darlene's and my friend Dorie's 35th Bday party).


After a couple of different choices for where to go hiking, Liz decided on Bon Echo provincial park (east of Peterborough). We headed out on Friday night and stopped at Ferris provincial park for a night of car camping. Really nice spot, out of the way, nice sized campsites and well spaced out.


The first test was of my new sleeping pad, Big Agnes. Hopes were high that this would be a great sleeping pad. It is so compact when uninflated and super think when inflated. Unfortunately, it was not for me. It was really slippery and my new sleeping bag doesn't have a strap to go around the sleeping pad so most of the night I was sliding all over the place. Also, I found it to be really uncomfortable. I had such a pain in my lower back the next morning. First off, very happy for the rehearsal camping as it would not have been good to find that out on the first night in Nunavut. The Big Agnes is going back to MEC and I will find myself a perfectly good thermarest.


At 5:00 am we got up and packed up our gear and hit the road for Bon Echo. I think we were on the trail by 9am, but I can't remember.

The trail was very nice, very green (I love my new eyes). We were making good time and actually enjoyed a couple of breaks along the water. The pack wasn't too bad (of course, it didn't have all the food and clothes that I'll be carrying in Nunavut). We saw a beaver swimming in the lake, boy they can move. We were scared by a partridge (sounded like a chainsaw starting up) and Liz came across a number of garter snakes. So, not alot for the wildlife journal. We did spend a good hour or so on some rocks (after getting to our campsite) watching the fish watching the tadpoles. We all fell asleep in the sun on the rocks. It was so nice.

Up again at 5:30, we took our time getting the gear packed away and had an awesome breakfast of egg burritos. We were back on the trail at 7:45 and out of the trail at around 10am. On our way we passed the other campsites. At one, the campers had hoisted their food directly over their tent. We kind of hoped a bear would try to get at their food and fall out of the tree landing on them. Then we came across the poacher. There was a tent on the trail that was not a designated campsite. We only saw the guy in the tent for a second as he scurried back in when he saw us. His clothes were strewn all over the rocks along with a 40 of rum and some pepsi. We were mighty tempted to stomp on his clothes.

Overall, though, the hike and camping was good and I can't wait for Nunavut. I have some more shopping to do at MEC this weekend and then I should be ready to go. Our hike this weekend was 17.1 kms and we didn't do too badly for time.