Saturday in the Park

I took a lot of photos while camping last weekend in Algonquin Park, but I don't want to lose any readers by trying your patience to see all of them! But I did want to share a few of my weekend away.

On Saturday we planned for a long hike in the woods. We were rather disappointed that the trees were not at their peak of colours as yet (probably this weekend would have been perfect!). Rather than doing the more difficult and much longer trail we had originally planned for, Centennial Ridges 11 km, we opted for the shorter 5 km hike on Booth's Rock Trail. Our dog Cody had been collapsing at home because he had chewed his paws raw from allergies, he just couldn't stand on his feet! We didn't want to push him too hard on an 11 km trail. I put little baby socks on his feet and wrapped medical tape around them. They stayed on the entire weekend and he was able to run along the trail without any pain.

In my opinion Centennial Ridges has the best view in the park! But Booth's Rock comes in a close second, so we were satisfied with the hike in the end. And Booth's Rock only has one steep climb up the trail, compared to countless breathless climbs on Centennial. By doing the shorter Booth's Rock, it left us some extra time to also go for a canoe paddle across Rock Lake afterwards :)

On the first section of trail it's flat, and as you can see, very green!! We were hoping for reds! oranges! and yellows!

This is a favourite part of the trail for me. These trees (which I believe are hemlock) allow a soft filtered light through the forest, and there's very little undergrowth. It's an area that a wealthy lumber baron built a summer home. The home has long since gone, although there are still remnants of their concrete boat dock along the shore and a few foundation pieces, oh, and the tennis court there in the middle of the woods (now covered with pine needles, so I didn't bother with a photo).

After all this beauty, we started the big climb, which is not too bad if you're in halfway decent shape. At the top we get this spectacular view ...

Really, the only red we could see in this view was our own red pickup truck back at the parking lot. Just a faint tint of colour starting throughout these hardwood forests. 

I loved these old dead pine trees on the side of the cliff. Their trunks were all silvery and smooth from the sun, wind, rain, ice and snow polishing them up for many years ...

We ate our lunch from this vantage point, and Cody was happy to stare me in the face watching me enjoy my sandwich. He had a couple of biscuits, but I think a ham sandwich was what he really wanted. He was feeling great despite his bout with allergies. You can see he has rubbed the fur off from around his eyes, and he doesn't even have any eye lashes!

His brown-eyed side ...

and his blue-eyed side ...

Ahhhh ... that view!! All that you can see here (and more!) is Algonquin Park ...

But what goes up, must come down ... dreaded stairs again. At least these were only on the way down, but my knees were feeling a bit jelly like at the bottom.

My son found a perfect armchair beside the sparkling waters once we got back down :)

Of course Cody had to join him ...

We took a few hours on the trail since we stopped for a leisurely lunch. Once we got back down, we immediately got the boats off the truck and set them in the water for our paddle. It was a gorgeous day with a high of around 27C, and the sun was dazzling! At this time of year it seems the sun is forever at that angle that it shines straight into your eyes. We had a couple of hours to paddle across Rock Lake before it would start to get too dark to be on the water. Motor boats are allowed on this lake, and we didn't want to get caught out on the water when it's difficult to see (well for people in the motor boats to see us!!).

From the water we can see the rock cliff we had just visited ...

These are the rock faces that have the pictographs painted on them, and here's my son being silly holding the whole cliff on top of his head ;)

The same cliff a bit further away ...

How do you like this rock garden full of ferns?

On the other side of Rock Lake were it heads far down this arm to a portage (which we didn't go through). It was then time to turn around and head back to our campsite for some well-earned supper.

And that was our Saturday in the Park!

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy

and Cody of course!