Tochi's Hut

""Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away..." - Author Unknown

Saturday, snowshoed to Buzzard Lake in the Kawartha region, an hour north of Peterborough.  Bear Grylls had inspired me to give snowshoeing a try, so when jeff-trex was soliciting people to go snowshoeing, I jumped at the opportunity.

Given the super warm temperatures last week, we were afraid that there won't be snow left on the ground.  The snowshoeing trek might turn into a hike.  Fortunately, we got a couple days of flurries and cold temperatures.  Ended up with a nice 4-6 inches of snow on the ground, just enough to warrant the snowshoes.

This is my first real opportunity at snowshoeing.  I had done it once back in high school during a winter camping trip, but I was just fooling around back then and never tried them a serious hike.  We planned on starting at 7:30am, but the drive shaft of one of our fellow hiker's van fell off on the way, so we had to arrange a tow truck for him.   Ended up moving out at 8:45am.

The weather was almost perfect for the trek.  Around -5C with cloudy skies and the occasional breaks of sunshine.  Best of all, there was very little wind.  We had the trail log from a previous hiker, so we kind of just followed along. 

At one point, we missed a side trail entrance and continued down the main trail for another 400m before realizing our mistake.  We were left with two unpleasant options, either backtrack and try to cut around the top of a long lake, or continue southward to go around the bottom of the lake.  Looking at our maps, we saw that at our current point, the lake was only 40m wide.  Perhaps we can make a break for it and run across?

I thought that was totally insane, given that it was so warm last week, the ice must not be very thick.  I was carrying TochiCam, so I cannot afford to break though the ice!  We got to the edge of the lake.  Greywynd was our guinea pig, since he was the biggest and fattest.  After the pole jabs failed to crack the ice, Greywynd took a few timid steps.  Nothing happened.   A few minutes later, we were all on the lake sliding around.  All my prior uneasiness vanished.  It was so cool moving along the pristine surface, feeling the open exposure to the elements and seeing the trails we are leaving behind us.

The next highlight was at a point where our trail popped out onto this high ledge.  We looked down and saw a fast flowing stream down below.  Reminded me of that ledge halfway up McGregor.  Anyway, we were all taking in the sights when TOMTEC pointed out that we needed to get to the other side.  Eek.  There wasn't much ice on the stream, so we won't be able to pull another repeat of the Lake trick.  We decided to hike further up the ridge, to see if we can find a crossing point.

Now, I'm going to switch topics for a second and talk about one of the coolest animals in the world.  The Beaver.  Aside from being a national icon, trading of its fur and pelts sparked the commerce between European traders and native Americans that led to the founding of Canada.  Of course, we cannot forget about the all important, super delicious beaver tails.

Back to the trek.  Beavers literally saved our butts on this trip.  Further up the ridge, we spotted a very well constructed beaver dam - our bridge across the stream!  TOMTEC took out his hatchet and cleared some branches blocking access to the dam.  I had no idea he brought an axe, but it was definitely useful!

Crossing the dam was quite the experience.  Water was flowing just over the top and given the mangled mess of branches and twigs that made up the dam, you'd never sure if it'd be stable or not.  After crossing, I had a new found respect for beavers.  The bridge was rock solid.  Quite a feat of engineering.  And yes, I took a lot of dam photos too.

After crossing over a couple more lakes and climbing over and down several more ridges, we finally got to Buzzard Lake.  It always sucks in these one way trips (compared to loops)because when you reach your final destination, you've only really come halfway.

On the way back, we got caught in some strong flurries briefly, spent some time huddled underneath a tree to relax and eat our lunches.  Decided to cut across the first lake to take a shorter path back to the main trail.  Overall, 18.8km in just over 9 hours.   The following is a trail log from the hike.

Winded down and spent the night at Jeff-trex's cottage.  Had a little potluck consisting of stew, sushi, pizza, scallop potatos, meatballs, beer, wine, etc.  The stew had been cooking for the entire day and was really tasty after the long trek.  Chatted for quite a bit until 11pm, when we all decided to retire early.  The trek was draining and catching only 3 hours of sleep the previous night didn't help.

With regards to snowshoeing, it is really like walking and the clamps helped tremendously on the hills.  The "expert" snowshoers in the group corrected me on how to go downhill properly, which was the only part that wasn't too intuitive.  Overall, the snowshoes kept me from sinking too far into the snow, so it felt like a normal hike on a autumn day, with no snow on the ground.  After 18.8 km, I just felt a little tightness in some of my muscles, nothing compared to the unbearable pains from BT Hike.

A fun, enjoyable trek overall.  Regarding to the quote at the beginning, I saw it on a geocoin jeff-trex shared with me.  Cannot think of a more fitting quote to describe the sights and experiences of our journey to Buzzard Lake.