Lake Superior Park

Thanks to all who contributed to Photo of The Week in 2011.  We've posted some of them in the Gallery.  Take a minute and check out the great pics of Lake Superior & Lake Superior Provincial Park.  If you have photos & stories of winter adventure send them to us and we'll post your park experience on the Blog.  Thanks & Happy New Year !

 

Fall winds picked up recently , and blew for about 3 days non-stop.  Ward Conway submitted this shot of the waves crashing upon the North shore of Lake Superior.  Awesome !!   This weekend coming up is the last weekend that Rabbit Blanket Lake Campground and the interior sites are open & manned by park staff.  They will be reopening around the first weekend in May 2012 depending on snow conditions.  Check on the Ontario Parks website for up to date information about when the campgrounds will be opening next spring.  www.ontarioparks.com

      Compared to a few weeks ago, the flies are scarce.  The fish are also scarce.  We launched our canoe at Crescent Lake.  It was a calm, clear, hot day with a beautiful breeze.  There was no one else on the lake except for a loon doing some fishing of its own.  Hopefully with better luck !  We trolled and casted for a few hours.  There were a few fish jumping for bugs, but they were'nt jumping into our boat.  As we approached shore another fish jumped, so we tried casting from shore too.  Maybe we'll have better luck next time, and even though we didn't catch anything except a few rays we had a great time as always.
         

 

     Our non-outdoorsy friends thought we were crazy. Camping in the winter? You must be nuts. The idea began in the fall of 2010 when our outdoorsy friends suggested a winter camping weekend. They had some limited snow camping experience from many decades ago...we had none. But, we love the outdoors and jumped at the opportunity. So the planning began with research, getting advice from experienced winter campers and of course planning meetings. We wanted to avoid the deep freeze of January so we chose a weekend in late February and selected Crescent Lake in Lake Superior Provincial Park as our destination. Crescent offered a relatively easy 20 minute snowshoe, icefishing, picnic tables, fire pits and most importantly...privies. We decided to scout Crescent the week prior and it was a wise choice because it took most of an afternoon to free the picnic table and fire pit of snow and dig a trail to the privy.

The following weekend we loaded our gear and drove up on a crisp sunny Saturday. In no time we had our little winter tent village set up and a roaring fire to keep us warm. Comfort food (chili) kept us well nourished and we even caught a few fish. The overnight temp dropped to about minus 12 but thanks to some good tips and preparation we all had a comfortable night. A hearty breakfast with the best coffee I've ever had gave us the energy to break camp. It was a wonderful experience and something we will definitely do again this coming winter.
 

Blueberries are plentiful this year.  They are ready to go.  Pick a few for pancakes in the morning at your campsite, or make it a berry picking day trip from the Sault or Wawa.

The flies are on.  The blackflies and mosquitoes are very friendly.

Our Winter Hike February 2011 on the Orphan Lake Trail was nothing less than spectacular.  Fresh inches of snow upon a well packed trail provided a challengeing and refreshing Day hike.  Took us 4 hours to hike the entire trail, including our stops to take some video and photos of the 1st and 2nd lookout, then down to Lake Superior and back along the Baldhead River, around the North side of Orphan Lake and then, back to the parking lot.

Sightings:  lots of moose tracks.