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May 18, 2024 - Friday Lake

Another nice day, but again very hot, right from the beginning. The black flies fortunately decided to sleep in, but the mosquitos had now woken up, and they were thirsty. Today was a day of fantastically maintained trail. An extra deep tip of the hat goes out to Murray and his volunteer crew on this section. We moved from campsite to campsite along the trail on the easiest terrain of the hike so far, but took a lengthy break at each one. Dominique's feet are a mess, though she soldiered on with little complaint, albeit at a fairly slow pace. The irritation of my foot yesterday seemed to resolve itself, even though the tape I applied in the morning fell off about half way through the day.

Fantastic bog bridging


Less than stellar beaver bridging


Another well built bridge across a small gorge


And yet another across the flooded swamp


...and a partridge in a pine tree


I love how the trail goes right through this trunk


At Friday Lake we hiked into the inner campsite which was a lovely spot to set up camp, after which we sat down to discuss our options. Deb and I obviously wanted to continue and finish the hike. There was only about twenty six kilometers to go, which meant we could slow down and do two days of about thirteen kilometers each. Another option was to simply pull the pin here and call for our pickup. In the end it was decided that Deb and I would day hike the loop trail above Friday Lake tomorrow morning while Dave and Dominique rested at camp. We would then get Murray to pick us up early afternoon.

Deb started composing a text message but before she was finished a fit young woman came scampering through our site and stopped to say hello. Deb pounced, and within the span of three minutes and animated discussion in two official languages, we had a new and somewhat bewildered friend named Claudia who did not quite know what just hit her. Anyway, she was going to spend a couple hours hiking the Friday Lake loop and on her return would drive Dave and Dominique back to their car at the top of Rabbit Lake Road. That left Deb and I with the ability to continue the hike to the end. What a fortunate first enounter of a human along this trail!

Dave and I went for a swim in the frigid waters and found a couple of cans of soda under a rock. Figuring they were forgotten by some previous campers I cracked one to quench my thirst. Strangely it was not refreshingly cold, but kind of lukewarm. A few minutes later we saw a canoe which was bee-lining towards our site. As it pulled in the fellow paddling in the stern asked if we were Deb's party. Turns out this was Murray, our shuttle driver! The soda actually belonged to his wife who was out hiking with a friend (and turned up a few minutes later). Fortunately she did not seem to concerned as I appologized about the missing one. Deb and I arranged a pickup at the Latchford trailhead on Monday morning, then the small crowd departed.

Many hours passed and we started to worry about Claudia. Maybe she got lost? Maybe she had second thoughts about these strange people that she had just met and found some way to bypass coming through the site again? Maybe she just underestimated the time she would require to do the planned hike? Just as Deb and I were retiring to our tents for the night, Claudia showed up though. We said goodbye to Dave and Dominique, and then we were two.

Hike Time: 6.5 hours
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