Again just Sven and I this weekend. Almost all of B Loop is pulled out now. Kevin and Betty came up Saturday night, I think they are packing up too. Just us left with the Patmores, and the folks in Sites 10 & 11. They are hunters like we are; wonder if they will stay all through November? Betting not, because just the men hunt. The women stay in camp. Don’t ask me why I think that means they won’t stay all season; I just do.
Went back up to Touchwood on Saturday. Got up at 6.30, mostly because we were in bed by 10 on Friday night! It’s funny how tired we get when we are on our own; I guess because it gets dark so early.
Got up to Touchwood by 930. High thin cloud cover again, very little breeze, temp around 11 degrees. (Note: all my degrees are in Celsius, always) Not warm, but not overly cold. No rain. Moon is in the last quarter.
We went to the cut line where the power lines are; we’ve always wanted to hunt there but it’s really big country to be hiking on foot.
We went off the North side first, only made it a couple of kilometers and got stopped by the swamp. Sven walked through a bit of it and we might have made it, but it wasn’t worth getting stuck over. Especially with nothing to winch to.
So we headed back across the road and scouted down the South side, and what a great trail! Note to self, about half km in, the trail takes you right to the edge of a big cliff. Approach with caution! There is a roundabout way down. We carried on down the cutline for about 5 km, there was one spot of marsh that we got into before we knew what we were getting into. Sven punched through it at high speed and thankfully we made it. We got stopped by a creek running straight across the field. Someone did build a little bridge across it – sketchy but likely would have been effective. Again, we decided not worth it. We saw zero sign of any type of wildlife. If we had, we likely would’ve gone further down the cut line, but we decided to turn back here and carry on in search of other trails.
Coming back across the marsh, figured we were ready for it this time. Sven put it in high gear, punched it, and we flew across about three quarters of that marsh before we came to an abrupt halt. Yup, stuck. Thankfully, we were near enough to one of those giant power lines. That, however, was a bit tricky. Winch wasn’t long enough, so Sven pulled out one of his tow straps and wrapped it around the pole. He put it on the pole that was further from us, because of the angle he was trying to pull on. When I held up the winch line, we were about 20 feet apart. Not to worry, he said, I will move it to the other pole. So he did that, and great! Now we are only about 4 feet apart. All right, he says, I will go get my bigass strap and replace the shorter one with it. So we rigged that one up, and yes, we are now about 8 inches apart. He’s not saying not to worry anymore, he’s saying shitpissgoddamnmotherfucker sorts of things……….and he is not letting me take any more pictures. We added the blue strap back into the rigging and SCORE! Now we are all connected and winching out easily. Jumped back onto the other track and went full bore out of the marsh.
Note: those shackles that he bought worked VERY well to hook the rigging together. Must get more.
Headed up Touchwood Road again, staged off across from the campground and went down the trailhead that is just outside the camp gates. We’ve been down this one on foot many times in past seasons, and we aptly named it Campground Trail. We’ve pulled quite a few grouse out of there in previous years. It’s wide and quite well maintained. Signs posted on it say that there is a wildlife photography project in action along the trail; probably why the trail is so well built. There are wooden bridges and paths all down it.
We did find a few trees fallen across the path here and there, so maybe the project isn’t in effect anymore. We cleared those out easily and even stopped and had lunch. We made it about 10 km down the trail before we finally got turned around by a SWAMP. There was a really low spot on the trail, and basically it just flooded out. We scouted around it and found where we can blaze a trail next time; but at this point it was already 3 o’clock so we called it a day. Still, it felt really great to make it that far down the trail when so many times we’ve turned back far earlier, being on foot and fizzled out. We mapped out the trail on the GPS, and it looks like it goes on for miles and miles further. We will have to plan a trip there next year with Patmore’s; I think they would really like it.
Was kind of disappointing not seeing any wildlife to speak of (except the grouse that I missed earlier in the day) but the scouting was a good success. It’s really helpful to know the trail you are going to be on, especially when the snow starts falling.
Back at camp, and yet again it got dark really quickly. Right around the gloaming time, Gunnar got up and charged to the end of the site, barking furiously at a wily coyote! Best of all, Gunnar did not charge out of camp, he just chased the thing until it went away. He sure looked proud of himself when he came trotting back to the fire, and rightly so! What a great dog. I’ve often wondered how he would react to a coyote; would he know it as a foe, or would he just figure it was another dog to play with? Well now we know… one more reason to trust the Chesapeake’s instincts. They really are great dogs; and none greater than our Gunnar. No matter what Sven says.
Once again, the earlier sundown just knocked us out. Toft’s were in bed by 9 pm; that’s got to be a first! We were just beat.
We slept till 6.30 which felt really quite late. Got in the General again and went off to the Beaver Overflow to check how high it is this week. We really need to get more firewood, so not getting across the overflow is quite a concern to us.
It was lower than it was last week, but still looked pretty deep. We may have made it through, but opted instead to go check out the Bypass by Sandy Hill. It, too, is looking lower than last week but the mud is still chewed up really badly. It may not ever settle back to being passable.
Seems someone else had the same thought we did, and they cleared a path around the Bypass! What a good soul. The path is even wide enough for the General to get through, which we thought was mighty social of this unknown trail blazer. There were a few high stumps left, so Sven cleaned those up with the chainsaw and off we went.
It was such a beautiful day for a ride! Sunny, blue sky, and about 20 degrees. It doesn’t get much better than that. We went down to Eagles Nest by Hope Lake Road, found where some adventurous hunter had set himself up a tree stand deep in the bush. (found that by Sven saying……I wonder where that trail goes…)
Seemed an odd place for a stand, not much of a view. Ah well, we wish him luck.
Still no wildlife, nary a critter to be seen. Except for that darn coyote! He came back and trotted up the road in front of us as we drove into camp. Brazen thing! Maybe I can lure him out to my walking path and get myself a nice fur hat.
Looking forward to next weekend; Patmores will be coming out finally. Looks to be getting cold though, and they might be packing it up for the season. Forecast is calling for frost next week…..winter is coming.
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