I have been hearing about the great Bon Echo Provincial Park for many years now. I had wanted to explore it and seeing as I had a free weekend in September and a willing and eager camping partner, the time to visit there had come! I did my best to research Bon Echo but other than the Ontario Parks Website and a few posts here and there, I couldn't find a whole lot. I contacted Bon [...]
It's funny the reactions you get from people when you tell them you are going on a solo backcountry trip! I'm not 100% sure if it's because I am female, or just because people don't really understand what spending time in nature does for your soul? From the very first time I went backcountry camping in 2002, I was hooked! On that trip I was in for 5 days and stayed on 4 different lakes. [...]
Longpoint Provincial Park is the fourth oldest park in Ontario, boasting over 1.5 km's of sandy beach! It is one of my favourite beaches in Ontario and I have been camping at Longpoint for about 8 years straight now. The tradition was started by my friend Cynthia, who used to have a group of her friends join her there annually, and has continued on with our volleyball group, spending a few days of fun in [...]
One month ago, I started this blog. I had always recorded my adventures somehow, some trips are written in Word and saved on discs that eventually got copied to my external drive, some had been recorded on Facebook in photo albums with notations on each photo, some on my phone, recorded verbally on the recording app where I actually kept a voice diary of each day, some are in small notebooks in my office desk [...]
On Saturday August 1st, I put my kayak up on my truck and headed to Outdoors Oriented http://outdoorsoriented.com to meet my friends Andrea and Kim. We had made plans to go for a paddle today at the Welland Recreational Canal http://www.canalcorp.ca/site/home, but after checking the weather forecast, I needed to make a tough decision. Do I risk paddling with new paddlers in 33km gusts in what people have called 'a wind tunnel' in an area I've never [...]
I woke up to a beautiful day Sunday, birds chirping, sun out and the promise from the Weather Network of a warm day! I was supposed to go out for a hike with my good friend Andrea, but she advised me she was a bit under the weather and couldn't make it. As I am going on a canoe trip next, then car camping without my kayak following, I decided I needed to get out [...]
Last night after many weeks of indecisiveness, I finally purchased a new backcountry sleeping bag. My first backcountry bag was purchased in 2001 and has lasted me all this time, which I find incredible! I did pay about $210 for the original bags. They are Jack Wolfskins and are super light. i think they were about 2lbs and were rated -5 but don't quote me on that as I got them a very long time [...]