Triplogs / Triplog#13 / Day 2 / Days 3&4
Access#12(IN) - Pinetree L - Pinetree L - Pinetree L - Access#12(OUT)
Day 3
The ruggedness of my campsite, left me with an odd place to stow my canoe.
It was sunny and very warm this day. I didn't feel to good though, perhaps a reaction to my taking up smoking again, as I couldn't stop myself from smoking the remaining cigarettes in the pack. Yup I was addicted again...stupid. I decided to hang around camp and read my novel, and drink plenty of fluids to try and kill the queasy feeling. A woodpecker came by, then a red squirrel, soon all manner of critters were visiting the site. A chipmunk, and the meanest sounding mosquito I'd ever heard. I looked up from my novel, as I laid there in my hammock, to see that it wasn't a mosquito at all, but a hummingbird, it was checking out the frayed end of the rope on the hammock, it was yellow and with the fraying, it looked remarkably like a flower, I figure it did too, to the hummingbird, and once it realized it wasn't a flower, it left. Where's my camera when I need it most?
squirrels were among many critters to visit my campsite
Woodpecker looking for insects beneath the bark of a red pine
Sometime after 12:00 pm, I went into my tent to have a nap, as I just couldn't shake my queasy feeling. By 1:30 pm, I was awoken to the sound of voices. I stepped out of my tent in a stupor, groggy from an extended nap, and saw two guys in a red canoe, one paddling the other with a fishing rod in his hand, looking for a good place to cast. I glared at them in apparent annoyance, I felt sick, and went straight back to sleep, never to hear from the fishermen again. That was the only time I saw anyone on Pinetree Lake. By 5:30pm I felt a little better, enough to eat some chilli. If I wasn't going to vomit it up, I was going to have a blast! A haze formed over the sky(not because of me!) that evening as sunset approached, and this made for a nice red sunset.
"Barry's" campsite at full zoom as seen from my campsite
I read more of my novel and was in bed before 9pm that night, as I still felt queasy, the good thing though, was that it stymied my excessive resurgence in smoking. I remember the loons were quite vocal that night, and I couldn't help wonder where my visitors came from, I suspected like the voices that echoed the day before, they came from the first campsite on lake. If that was the case, the layout of Pinetree Lake, for both myself and the other occupants at the time, was well suited to our purposes. We each had our solitude.
My last sunset on Pinetree Lake
Day 4
One last look around Pinetree lake, before I broke camp
I woke up around 6:00 am. I felt really good. Had a coffee and a smoke, then felt terrible. By 7:00 am I was ready to leave, having packed everything up and loaded the canoe, I hesitated to leave. I found a nice place on a rock, overlooking the lake and simply sat and stared for a good 15 minutes. I really did not want to leave this lake. To me it was really interesting, it was beautiful, it had many little nooks and crannies that make lakes interesting. It had bays, it has lots of Canadian shield rock, it even had some islands, best of all, it had solitude. Having the campsite across from me vacant all weekend helped. It was a long weekend in Algonquin Park, and the only people I saw were two fishermen for five minutes on one of the four days that I was on Pinetree Lake. Nice!
Some bracket fungi along the trail to highway#60
I left at 7:15 am sharp and my paddle back was un-eventful, arriving at the takeout to the 1885m trail at exactly 8:00 am. Getting out was a little tricky(as was putting-in), as there are some logs blocking access to the lake and one has to get their feet wet to launch onto the lake. I chugged up the trail with my canoe first. I remember that by 9:40 am, I was at the trail head, having completed my second carry, and by 9:52 am, I had the gear stowed and the canoe secured to my vehicle. I reluctantly drove out onto the highway, it was sunny and beautiful, just the kind of weather I dislike leaving behind, leaving The Park on such a beautiful day is almost a crime.
One last look back down the trail, before heading out on the highway
I really liked Pinetree Lake, it is a gem of a lake, interesting not only for its beauty, but for its solitude. Once anyone can put their mind to it, tackling the 1885m portage is well worth the trip to Pinetree Lake, the portage itself not being too tough either. I received only two mosquito bites on that portage, both on the first day going in. This isn't to say that Pinetree is bug-free, it just adds an extra bit of warmth to my smile as I recall my stay on Pinetree Lake.