a peek inside the fishbowl

Yesterday I wrote about our introduction to walk-in campsites at Silent Lake Provincial Park and our trial-by-fire (or should I say, trial-by-thunderstorm?) arrival.

After the deluge we went for a walk down to the beach and were greeted by a rainbow. I took this as a good sign.

We ran into another mother-daughter duo who pointed out a detail about walk-in campsites that we hadn’t quite figured out yet. The youngest and I had just lugged a huge heavy cooler up to our site. Why hadn’t we just left it in the food shed with the other stuff? Apparently, the thing to do is go down to the food shed from your site with a grocery bag and load up everything you need INSTEAD OF LUGGING A TWO TON COOLER UP TO THE CAMPSITE and then BRINGING IT BACK DOWN AT NIGHT. Doh.

I am glad we sorted this out sooner than later because honestly, it was breaking out backs. Here’s what that food shed looks like inside, by the way:

The next day the two of us set out for Bonnie’s Pond Trail. It’s 3km; an estimated 1.25 hours round trip. Park folks rank this trail as “easy” but I don’t completely agree. A stretch of boardwalks and flat gravel is easy, but this was a bit more challenging than that, with hills and uneven paths over rocks and roots so let’s call it Pleasantly Rigorous But Not Punishing.

That being said, Bonnie’s Pond Trail is a definitely a “must do” if you’re visiting Silent Lake. It really is pretty, with lots of mature trees, mosses, and ferns, with a nice payoff in the form of a lookout. It felt longer than the alleged 3K distance, but maybe that’s just me.

Fishbowl readers may remember a very buggy hike at Bon Echo last year and a special family challenge that I issued to all participants. Well, I should mention that Bonnie’s Trail was the opposite, with minimal mosquitos and no deer flies. In fact, the bugs at Silent Lake were a non-issue during our stay. We didn’t use nearly as much bug spray and no one even needed the calamine lotion. (!) It must be because it’s been such a dry summer. In fact, until the day we arrived there was a fire ban in the entire area. We’ve dealt with a fire ban only once before. A fire ban is a real bummer, totally understandable, of course, but camping just isn’t camping without gathering around an open fire.

The youngest and I had a late lunch on Friday. On the menu: the pork kebabs we were supposed to have the night before, along with a chopped salad. We saved the leftover salad for Mark and the eldest, who were arriving later that evening. We covered the bowl with a plate but a determined chipmunk figured out how to get into the salad anyway so we had to resort to drastic measures to keep him out. Can you see him in the photo below?

(If not you may need to see a larger version.)

We decided to light our fire a little earlier than usual, and the youngest accepted the challenge. Miraculously, she got it started. I suspect that the $1.75 fire starter cube I bought at the gatehouse helped things along a bit (they also sell ice, wood, and select emergency supplies such as Advil, tampons, coffee, marshmallows and the like) but I feared that even a firestarter chemical bomb or whatever it is wouldn’t be a match for a soggy fire pit filled with damp branches and a sopping wet pizza box at the bottom of it all. Good news for us, it worked and we had a lovely fire.

We spent the rest of the day reading and/or staring off into space and into the tree tops as we waited for Mark and the eldest to arrive. We also fooled around with the camera a bit.

Coming up next: more about some of the critters we encountered during our stay.

Our campground of choice this year was Silent Lake Provincial Park. This was actually our fourth time visiting Silent Lake. Mark and I went there in the fall of 2005 and we returned as a family in the summer of 2006. We also went the winter and stayed in a yurt (which was totally amazing).

This year was different in many ways.

The youngest and I drove up alone on Thursday night. The eldest daughter had to work Friday so she and Mark drove up separately Friday evening.

This year we decided to try something completely new to us: a walk-in site. We aren’t the type of campers who portage deep into the wilderness. Normally when we camp, we just pull the car into our pre-booked campsite and pitch our tent. If you’ve camped this way before, you also know that the car serves many purposes other than mere transportation. While camping the car is also storage, shelter, and also a power source, but it’s mostly storage, especially food storage.

It’s never a good idea to leave food at a campsite – even a locked cooler- as it will attract unwanted attention from area wildlife such as raccoons and bears. Sidebar: we’ve only had a bear wander through our general area only once (that we know of, anyway) in our years of camping but raccoons are a reality and they are actually smart enough to figure out a cooler latch.

But I digress. Walk-in sites at Silver Lake are exactly that: you park your car in a designated lot and haul your gear in yourself. Advanced Car Camping! Just our speed.

I should point out that the distance between the lot and the site varies depending on what site you booked, obviously. We asked the Ontario Parks staffer at the front gate how far it was to the site we booked (#76, for anyone wanting to replicate our experience) and we were told that it was a five minute walk. Five minutes is relative, of course, depending on your length of stride, whether you need to pee, or are being chased by a bear, but I can confirm that it’s almost exactly 250 steps and the latter part of it is uphill and over a rough path that’s laden with rocks and roots. In other words, it’s not ideal for anyone who has issues walking on uneven terrain. If this was an ordinary walk in the woods it would be totally within my fitness and skill level. While carrying sleeping bags, mattresses, food, and boxes of camping gear (utensils, mugs, frying pan etc. etc.), it is, in a word, torture. (Mark had suggested we bring a dolly but I didn’t want to be That Person.) The youngest and I took multiple trips. In fact, I lost count so I can’t even tell you how many times we went back and forth. I do know that we didn’t manage to unload everything on that first day. We had no energy left, and no time. A pending thunderstorm, nay, a Severe Thunderstorm Watch issued by Environment Canada, had us scurrying to lay the tarp and get the tent set up, but more on that in a bit.

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One of the surprisingly handy features of the Silent Lake walk-in site is a food storage shed part way in. It’s secure from animals and relatively cool and well-ventilated, even on warmer days. Rough shelving provided plenty of space for coolers and bins of food.

The food shed was about halfway from our site to the parking lot. The parking lot was also where the toilets were located. The toilets were a notch above a double outhouse, with concrete floors and heavy locking doors, but no light or running water. Did I mention the toilets were 250 steps away? This required PLANNING. I imagine that campers with small children would require even more planning. (“Will you need to pee in five minutes, honey?”)

Our site was quite nice – a lot of bumps and roots though – and I worried whether our home away from home would be uncomfortable. Inflatable mattresses helped immensely. It was a little close to the neighbours on one side, but it was surrounded by mature trees and a very short walk to the waterfront, which proved to be a nice place to relax and unwind.

I had assumed that the walk-in sites would be more private than the regular sites. For the most part I think that’s true, although I will say that sound carries just the same, even if there’s an extra 10m between your group and another one. I realized this when our neighbours spent some time singing the same two verses of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, multiple times in a row. Also, some dude down the way snored so loud he probably scared the bears away. (Thanks dude!)

So, back to Thursday night. The youngest and I barely had time to set up the tent when the rain started. I had my doubts that the two of us could manage, but we did. And then it rained. And it rained. And it rained. And it rained some more. It rained so hard that our tent shook. It also leaked. Fact: tents provide shelter but also serve as very large rain catchers. We took turns pushing off the ever-growing pools of water that were accumulating on the roof. Each shove resulted in a giant splash that I feared was just pooling under our tent.

In the middle of all of this, the youngest got up (of her own volition, I might add), donned my raincoat (which I had packed at the last minute thanks to Mark), went outside, and repositioned the tent pegs to minimize leakage. She also ran to the cooler to scrounge up some ham and cheese for dinner. (I already had a loaf of bread in my possession. Go figure.) Bless her heart. Thanks to her we had something to eat other than sour gummy worms and stale popcorn. It was still a sorry sight though. Imagine two shivering women hiding in a flimsy tent in a terrible rainstorm, eating cold ham and cheese sandwiches without butter or mayo.

The warmth of our sleeping bags and pounding rain eventually lulled us to sleep. It was early evening yet, but we napped. Apparently it had hailed as well, but somehow we slept through it. We woke to a very soggy campsite and took the opportunity to stretch our legs and check out the beach:

Part two coming up next.

Ah, my Fishies. We’re home from our annual camping trip and I’ve hardly begun to recover from this one. I’ve got a LOT of stuff to share and I’m busy editing photos and collecting my thoughts. In the meantime, here’s Piper, giving our tent a big snifferoo:

I know exactly what smell has caught her attention. She’s probably caught a whiff of the raccoon that tried to get inside our tent. But more on that later.