Hikes

Sixteen people arrived at the boat launch to begin our trek on the particularly sunny morning. The stillness of the air made the lake look like glass. The rain from the previous day had filled the dips in the trail, but it barely slowed us down as we stepped around, aiming our boots for the lush grasses.

The saskatoons here are still ripening on some bushes. Clearly, it’s not too late to enjoy this year’s abundance.

As we approached the final section of our trail, we were more than a little apprehensive when we saw a (gorgeous) herd of brown and white cows blocking our stile. As we were plotting our strategy (stay together–look big), the cows reacted first and collected themselves away and towards the centre of the valley.

 

 

Prominent flowers included the richly purple smooth aster (Symphyotrichum laeve) and the many-flowered aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides). We saw some pelicans and several instances of wolf spiders’ traps on the ground, as the heavy dew on their webs really made them stand out.

Oh!–and Vadim Bulitko managed to capture a porcupine.

Check out our photos on Flickr.

It was everything you could want in a middle-of-the-summer hike–sun, refreshing breezes, a glistening lake, toads, butterflies, and a flurry of dragonflies that kept the mosquitoes in check.

 

Twenty-three people followed the path out of the park and onto the Waskahegan trail for a 10.5 km hike. We stretched out single file as we walked through the tall-grass meadows and the “islands” of forest that dotted the fields.

 

At the highest point was the St. FX monument, put in by the St. Francis Xavier High School biology students who cleared the trail in 1970.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For lunch, we decided to sit down in the grassy field where we could take advantage of the breeze.

Plants of note were the Indian Pipestem (Monotropa), distinctive for its lack of chorophyll, and a few Indian Paintbrush.

We want to give a big thank-you to Trail Maintenance, who made this trail extremely walkable. Also a big shout-out to Brad, who returned to the trail afterwards and cleared a huge spruce tree that had fallen on the path.

You can see more pictures on Flickr.