cub's corner: Hiking Waskesiu

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Hiking Waskesiu

The weekend began cool and damp on Friday, dried out and warmed up on Saturday, and ended with a huge thunderstorm - lightning and all - on Sunday.

After spending a few very good days with Sanjit here in Toontown last week, it was good to get out with John and do some camping this weekend.

I departed for Waskesiu around 5 in the afternoon Friday, arriving there close to 8 in the evening. John was already there, having set up his campsite previously. Mosquitoes, plenty of them, were there as part of the greeting committee also. After setting up my tent, we made a fire and sat around and talked for the rest of the evening.

Saturday morning I got up around 8, made myself a good coffee - Bailey's and all - and then got ready for a hike. John's friend Deana also joined us. It was a good day for hiking as the sun came out, burning through the clouds, warming up the weather. This meant less mosquitoes too, which we welcomed.

We hiked around 18 kms, completing most of the Red Deer trails, covering mostly level ground through forested trails, but with some nice views of the lake and town along the way. Getting out on the hiking trails was a breath of fresh air for me, both literally and figuratively!

After the hike we settled down in our campsite again, built a fire, and made dinner. I'd brought food along, but John was keen on trying out and sharing his newly concocted camping-quiche recipe (pictured below).

We had a good conversation throughout the evening, John and I. It seems to me we're both bruised and battered souls, but still in battle.

Sunday morning we were greeted by ominous, thunderous clouds. We promptly packed up our stuff, avoiding having to pack up all our tenting gear in the rain. We also managed to eat breakfast before the intense rain began.

We decided to do another hike, though, even though it was pouring rain. We settled for the Spruce River Highlands Trail, an 8.5 km loop with some nice ups and downs, and some nice viewpoints too. It poured for about the first 20 minutes of our hike, but then the rain stopped, and surprisingly, within an hour, it was hot and sunny again. The loop took us about 2 hours to complete. We spotted a moose (my first one since arriving in Saskatchewan!) along the way too.

I took a lovely alternate route home; a narrow, windy, hilly, tree-lined highway leading out of Prince Albert National Park. I saw elk like the one below along the way.