Wildwoodery

I wrote last week that I felt it was time for a bit of a rest, which is precisely what I aimed to achieve last weekend.

How much trouble could I get into with a canoe?

While I didn't run for 4 full days, I'm not sure the end result was what you'd call restful. We left straight from work - actually having to leave a bit early, as Wildwood Conservation Area specified we needed to check in before 6pm to get the keys for our backcountry site. If that doesn't make any sense, it's because most backcountry campsites don't have a padlocked portajohn and wood bin at them! While not something to which we're accustomed, both were quite welcome...though the check-in restriction wasn't the easiest to deal with. Whose boss is happy with an employee leaving early for a long weekend?

Ready to load up and go

In any case, we made it, got our keys, and were on the water by 6pm with plenty of time to paddle the 3.5km to our site before sunset. I'd stupidly forgotten our waterproof/shock resistant camera at home, so it would be cellphone photos for the whole trip. With a bit of chop and a stiff west wind at our backs, we surfed our way diagonally down the reservoir to campsite 501 within half an hour. We ate a couple of sandwiches I'd made the night before, then set up camp.

That proved slightly challenging, as the picnic table was chained to the ground and set with two of its legs on large rocks to provide about the only flat spot on the entire site. This meant that tarping over the picnic table to make a dry area to cook (with lots of rain predicted over the course of our time there) was a bit perilous, as the wind blew from the water, over the fire pit, and right toward the table - any flying sparks would likely damage the tarp, if not actually set it ablaze.

So, we used the second tarp to set up a wind break.

Lost our view of the lake, but might save our gear...or our lives.

We also ended up having to pitch our tent on a slope, so made sure to organize it so our heads would be uphill. Noone wants to wake up with a splitting headache from sleeping heads down!

With camp sorted out, the sun set, and thoughts turned to dinner.

Just as lovely as the sunset we had for Rugged Raccoon a fortnight earlier.

It got damn cold after dark - it was only about 11c as we paddled out, and dropped to about 4c. Having forgotten my insulated vest in the car (dummypants), I put on just about every other piece of clothing I'd brought and huddled by our fire. We had plenty of wood: the bin at the site holds 4 bags, for which they charge $35. We burned two that first night alone, which meant there was lots of space in the plastic storage bin for our 30L food barrel - it stood inside quite nicely, giving us easy access and a quick way to secure it from wildlife, saving us the need to set up a cache line.

We also used the fire to make Jiffy Pop, which is an irresponsible amount of popcorn for 2 people.

By midnight we were both plenty tired and chilly, and ready to roll into bed. Unfortunately we didn't have the most comfortable night - the slope of the tent and the surface of our sleeping pads conspired to keep us sliding downhill every time we'd move even slightly, so we were constantly pulling ourselves back up so our feet wouldn't be smushed against the side of the tent. 

I was up for a wee not too long after sunrise.

Eventually we just gave up, then got up and I made breakfast.

My kitchen had quite the view!

Tank did some fishing from our site, and caught a little northern pike!

He;s about 14" long

After dishes were done, we paddled back to the launch to retrieve my insulated vest from the car, plus the two bags of firewood we'd bought at Wildwood 2 weeks prior when we'd camped there for Rugged Raccoon, but hadn't burnt. We figured that 6 bags of wood (with the 4 from the bin) should last us the whole weekend, and while we could have waited until Sunday to pick them up, the wind was predicted to be pretty nasty on Sunday. So, we got the job done early, then paddled around past the dam that created Wildwood Lake and along the south shore back to our site.

3.5km to the dock, then another 5k to get back to our site.

Along the way we stopped by some quiet inlets so Tanker could try fishing from the boat, just enjoying being out on the water.

No luck, but still a fun time.

Back to the site for a bowl of soup for lunch - it was another rather chilly day, with a high of only 14c - then we headed out for a bit of a hike. We went east along the Lake Trail, which meant I got to see some of the Rugged Raccoon course in daylight that I'd previously only covered in darkness.

Like this spot where a creek flows across the trail.

The original idea when we booked this trip months prior was that I'd get some running in on that trail, but knowing it was a mess of mudholes and having done rather a lot of training lately, I was more than happy just to hike a bit.

And to spend time with my sweetheart.

We diverted off the main trail to attempt the Hardwood Loop, which actually has some technical features for mountain bikers.

Basically a bunch of skinnies and rock gardens.

The trail wasn't very well marked, though. We didn't actually get lost, as it's a fairly short side trail, but we did end up bushwhacking a few metres through from the easternmost point (where the trail markings seemed to peter out entirely) to the main trail.

We did see this cool tree along the way.

We walked east a bit further on the main trail to signpost #21, then headed back over the gently rolling hills to our site.

Passing a patch of trilliums along the way.

Checking the weather forecast again, they were predicting thundershowers starting right from Sunday morning through the afternoon, with rain in the evening. We decided it was time to reclaim our lake view, adding the tarp to the back of the campsite to make a dry area that spanned from the picnic table to over the wood/food bin.

That would give us enough room to sit in our chairs out of the weather.

In an unusual move, I actually had the fire lit and dinner ready before dark!

Stir fry with fresh and dried veggies - great stuff for a chilly evening.

Eating in daylight - what witchcraft is this?

After dinner, I relaxed by the fire while Tank did dishes.

If you wonder about the green glowing orb, it's an illoom - we love them for campsites, or any other nighttime outdoor fun!

I had brought along a couple of marshmallows to toast over the fire, and was going to look for an appropriate stick when I had an idea: why not use the wire handle from the Jiffy Pop? I pulled the used pan out of our garbage bag and deliberately went against the instruction to not squeeze the wires together - this released the handle from the edge of the foil pan, which is no bueno when cooking, but definitely helped with my plan.

Turns out that wire handle is a full loop around the pan itself!

Today I learned..

So it was a quick matter of snapping the weld between the ends of the wire, then doing some creative bending to turn it into a marshmallow toaster.

With a comfy handle to boot!

Perfectly toasted.

If you're wondering why I didn't just grab a stick, I can give you a couple of reasons:

1) Wildwood Conservation Area is quite specific about leaving both live and dead wood the heck alone. 

2) It's much easier to toast the inside of a marshmallow to ooey-gooey, liquidy perfection when using a metal toasting stick/fork, as it conducts heat to the inside.

Especially when using oversize specialty marshmallows

Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful.

Up to pee again, and stayed up to watch the sun crest the treeline.

I did go back to bed, but woke Tanker up around 8am with the sun shining and the winds still fairly calm. We decided we'd head out to paddle the east end of the reservoir - the only portion we hadn't yet covered - before breakfast, so we could catch the decent weather.

But first - COFFEE
(with no pants on)

It was a beautiful, warm morning to be out on the water.

Tank did some more fishing, but had no success.

We paddled out to the bridge that I'd run across from the 15k aid station at Rugged Raccoon, then turned back toward camp in a freshening breeze. We were happy we'd gone to get the firewood the day before, as the southwest wind would have made for a nasty crossing from the dock as it blew across our beam.

Looking west toward the dam.

We completed our circuit of the reservoir with another 4.75km of paddling, then returned to camp in the hot sunshine.

It was by far the nicest day of the trip!

Then it was time to fire up the stove for a proper breakfast, with another pot of coffee.

Definitely got our appetites up!

After dishes were done and we'd tidied up camp, we headed out for another hike - this time working our way west along the Lake Trail toward backcountry campsite 502.

Just as the first few drops of rain began to fall.

We only had a few minor sprinklings of rain as we walked ~3km out to just beyond site 502 (perched on a grassy point with no shelter, and occupied by a family with a Coleman tent whose fly looked much more optimistic than I'd want to trust with the coming weather - I sure hope those folks were ok!), with a few good rumbles of thunder. We could hear massive gusts of wind ripping through the tops of the trees, but coming from the south we were well sheltered from it. We had a quick snack at our furthest point, then headed back the way we'd come. We were just griping about how little wildlife we'd seen in the park - a heron, a bald eagle, some Canada geese (with fuzzy little goslings) and a single squirrel were about it, though we could hear loads of frogs singing - when we encountered about the biggest turtle I've ever seen trying to cross the trail ahead of us!

He had quite a long neck, but retreated back into his shell as we approached.

I loved his awesome spiky tail!

Back to our campsite around 4:15pm, we had a late lunch and I got the fire lit. 

We also finally turned the canoe over to keep it from filling with rain.

By 5pm it was burning away merrily, which was a good thing as that's when the rain and thunderstorming started in earnest! The wind blew up strong from the west, plumes of rain over the building waves on the lake. We saw some fishing boats go by, and their occupants didn't seem particularly happy.

IT'S RAINING SIDEWAYS

We watched all this from under the safety of our tarps, which were fortunately soaked enough by the rain that there was very little danger from the wind blowing sparks from the fire in their direction.

Fire risk: quite low.

We lucked out in that we only really had a few minutes where both wind and rain were powerful enough to force us into our rain jackets under the tarp. Soon the weather settled again, and the sun even came out as it sank in the sky.

You'd never have known a tempest just blew through.

Everything got a good soaking, but our tarped-over portion of the picnic table stayed lovely and dry for me to cook dinner.

Again before dark - who even am I anymore?

We were even able to get our chairs out to sit by the fire - which we kept burning despite the soaking - while we ate dinner and watched the sun set on our last night in the park.

It actually turned out to be a lovely evening.

We turned in around 11pm, hoping to get a decently early start Monday morning as there was a nasty wind predicted - gusts up to 60+kph from the west, which would put us straight into it on our way back to the boat launch. I was up at 3am to pee, and saw moonlight streaming through the forest; between that and the calm night, I had high hopes that they'd be wrong about the wind, but when I awoke at 7:45am it was already blustery.

And the waves were up before me.

I dropped the secondary tarp and tidied up a few other odds and ends before I woke up Tanker for a breakfast of coffee and oatmeal.

Looking slightly more optimistic than either of us really felt.

The early sun disappeared behind clouds driven by the rising wind as we dropped camp, looking forward to our own NON-SLANTY bed that night. We'd never managed to solve the problem of sliding down our sleeping mats, though I'd tried by putting my drybag full of clothes under the foot of my pad. It didn't really help.

Nor would the wind and chop.

We were on the water for the last time before 11am, and I made a grave tactical error - based on the map we'd been given by the park, it seemed the best course was to cut across to the north shore and paddle along it to avoid the wind. Unfortunately, their orientation of "north" on the map doesn't seem to align with reality...and our chosen course had us beating upwind the entire way. Of course, by the time we realised this, we had no interest in cutting back across the lake and extending our trip..

Wind was from the due west

We fought hard, advancing by inches and at times having to look at the shore to be sure we were making any forward progress at all. As we bounced on the waves poor Tanker was soaked with spray and the bits of water washing over the bow - I caught a couple of facefuls of water myself when Tank's paddle would exit at the crest of a wave.

We pulled over twice at cottagers' docks (there are private cottages along much of the north shore) so we could catch our breath and have a few sips of water without being blown backwards, and finally made it once more to the boat launch. The trip that had taken just 30mins on Friday evening took us 52mins on Monday morning!

No photos from our journey as I'd put my phone safely in our waterproof box.

By half past noon we'd returned the keys to the UTRCA staff, then we had a bite to eat (pro tip: leave some corn tortillas, mustard packets and sliced salami in your car for a quick lunch - it keeps for days and will fill the gap til you can get something more substantial), then headed for home.

While we did enjoy our time camping at Wildwood and would recommend it to people looking to experiment with backcountry camping, I'm not sure that we'd return. Between the constant power boat traffic past our site, the lack of privacy at the site itself (it's only a few feet from the trail, so we frequently had hikers, runners and mountain bikers rolling through), and the lack of wildlife, it's far from our favourite park. For those who live in the southwest, though, it does mean a whole lot less time on the road than accessing the backcountry in the north or east of the province. We might consider going back for a super chill backpacking trip to site #500 at some point - the only backcountry site on the north shore of the lake - only because it's the lone campsite to which you can hike less than 15km without needing to walk along Highway 7. As for paddling to the other campsites (there are only 4 in total), we didn't like the exposure of site 502, and apart from our site (501) the others seemed to have more difficult water access.

That said, we did enjoy the ease of a short paddle to get to our site, a well-stocked and very clean portajohn just metres away, and that lovely bin that kept our firewood dry and our food safe and easily accessible. The reservoir is lovely, too, and despite Tanker's ultimate lack of repeated success it does seem to provide great opportunity for anglers.

Besides: a successful trip is one where you come back alive, and having all your gear intact is a bonus!

As for getting some rest, well...between the 20km of paddling and 9km of hiking, plus waking up quite often each night due to the slidey slope of the tent, I think I actually came home more exhausted than I left. I've got back to regular running again from Tuesday to Thursday, just in time to run the Sulphur Springs 50k tomorrow.

And guess what? They're calling for rain again..

Hope you all had a fun long weekend, and that I'll see some of you out on course!