The forecast called for rain today, but my daughter and I decided it was still worth a hike to McCrae Lake. The small parking lot off Crooked Bay Road was packed as usual, but I did manage to squeeze my car into something resembling a parking area. Despite the high numbers of cars, it is unusual to see more than one or two people out here, as this is both where the trail begins and where kayaker’s and canoers portage across a muddy trail to the small beach. Several backcountry camp sites are tucked along the trail which is a fifteen-kilometre return trip. Though I usually don’t want to meet or even talk to people along the trail, sometimes you can have interesting interactions out in the woods.
The gentle rain had deepened the bright green of the new foliage, and trees looked downright radiant in their leafy garb. The same rain had turned our trail into a deep brown quagmire of mud and slippery rocks. In several places on the incline, the path had been eroded away by the trickling water, and small rocks threatened to turn an ankle. Once up the incline, the trees thin out and the pink and grey of quartz and granite lay exposed to the northern weather. Scrubby junipers and wind sculpted oaks fought for footage in the thin soil. Tiny pink and yellow flowers of the native rock harlequin and the larger red petals of the wild columbine nestle among the grey lichens. They say that this is God’s Country, and the parting of the grey clouds to let that warm sunshine fall on us certainly felt that way. Of course, that warm sun also brings out the mosquitos from the wet grass, just to remind us that nothing is perfect. This is where we had our first interaction with others. Those rocks were indeed slippery, as the young lady hobbling towards us could attest. Using a branch as a crutch, she explained that she thought that she had broken her foot. I offered my poles and to have a look at her ankle, but she declined, as she had already wrapped it and felt she could make it back. You’ve got to love adrenalin for dulling the pain.
The trail makes it way along the Canadian Shield, over roots and rocks, next to beaver ponds dark with decaying vegetation, and past still ponds reflecting the cloudy sky. As the granite rocks protruded higher from the earth, the trees disappeared, and the sky opened. We are at the Eagles’ Nest, a cliff face high above McCrae Lake. As usual I stayed well back from that edge, while still admiring the deep blue waters. Not far away a young man was unpacking his gear for a day of climbing, and we struck up a conversation about techniques and gear. That is right, once, very long ago, I used to rock climb with a group of friends, until an incident made me terrified of heights. But that is another story. Today I was amazed that he planned to climb solo, especially as a newer climber. We wished him well and started back along the trail.
With just a few hundred metres left to get to our car, neither my daughter nor I were really paying much attention to the trail anymore. As Emily walked ahead of me, I was taken aback when a snake appeared from UNDER her shoe. A very small green stripped garter snake lay stunned in her footprint, missing the last part of his tail. I gently picked up the poor amputee and put him in some leaf litter further off the trail, hoping he could over come his trauma. I am not sure if my daughter was more upset at stepping on the little guy, or at the thought of a piece of tail stuck in her shoe treads. It was a quick drive home, with Emily checking her shoes every so often for missing reptile parts.