Back to the Front(enac)

We had a lovely little 24 hour camp-out last weekend - we pitched our enormous tent among the trilliums at Pinehurst on Saturday afternoon (after some vehicle maintenance-related annoyance trying to get out of town) and were settled in with enough time for me to get a 95min run in on the trails where I ran my very first 50k.

All set up in a few drops of rain

I used to think this was technical trail.

After the minor sprinkling as we pitched the tarp, the rain held off for the afternoon and evening. I managed to get back to our site after my run in time to change and head down to the beach with Tank for a sunset picnic and a few casts with his new reel.

Fading light over Pinehurst Lake

We spent a pleasant night by the fire, baking dessert in our dutch oven on the coals just as a few showers started to blow through. We rolled into bed around 1am and slept soundly despite on and off rain all night, then emerged in the morning to sunshine. The new tent - which kept us perfectly comfortable - and our tarp dried out in the sun and building wind while we relaxed by another fire with coffee and breakfast.

This is my favourite way to start a day.

After packing everything up and vacating our site, we rolled over to the day-use area so Tank could do some fishing and hiking while I got in my last trail run before Sulphur Springs. 

Gorgeous sunny day by the lake, even in 50+kph wind gusts

We enjoyed it so much, we decided to do it all again this weekend - with the extra challenge of carrying everything on our backs!

In reality, we'd planned since last November to go backpacking in Frontenac Provincial Park for the Victoria Day weekend. Not only is it a wonderful way to spend a few days - we're big fans of the park! - it's also a great way to keep me from running too much while I'm supposed to be tapering.

Of course, the weather forecast could be better:

Lifejackets for backpacking?

We do, however, have good rain gear and some creative ways to pitch a tarp to maintain a dry spot for cooking and eating in camp. We'll be exploring the south side of the park, which is new to us, so I figure we at least need to give it a whack - if things look really awful on Sunday morning and we just DO NOT WANT, we can always hike back out from Doe Lake and head home instead of continuing on (through apparently the most rugged portion of Frontenac) along the Rideau Trail and Small Slide Lake Loop to Buck Lake.

Who says you can't have fun in the rain, anyway?

Though we'd better remember to bring LOTS of bug repellent..

Wishing all the Canucks a very happy May Two Four weekend - hope you have a grand old time!