Point Grondine & Killarney
Went backpacking for the first time in a long time - the last time I did a backcountry trip was in Bruce Peninsula NP in 2016. We decided to do the Wemtagoosh Falls Loop as a way to test out my home-made sleeping bag, and my gear in general as I've been wanting to do some longer thru hikes. A lot less commitment than something like the La Cloche!
We got to see plenty of little critters and mushrooms on the 4 hour hike to our campsite and I was quite nervous that we wouldn't get there before dark, but the beautiful moss carpets helped distract me.
We spotted way too many mushroom varieties to count, including puff balls, coral and even a log covered in fresh oysters, unfortunately foraging is not allowed in this park, so we left them for all the locals in the forest.
The campsite was absolutely perfect, overlooking the lake. It was starting to get dark, and so we quickly set up our tent and made dinner. In my previous trips there have always been bear lockers or pulleys to bear hang with, but this time we had to do a proper bear hang, which we really struggled with and took us ages in the dark to get right! We both had a lot of trouble sleeping that night, I think we both needed proper pillows, rather than trying to sleep on our clothes.
The next morning, I got up early to see a thin layer of mist covering the lake. Wanting to do some other hikes in Killarney, we had breakfast and started our 6 hour hike back towards the trailhead. We went past Wemtagoosh, but didn't find it to be anything spectacular, the mushrooms were definitely the highlight of the hike!
We took our sweet time making it back to the trailhead, and only ended up having time to hike in and out to Cranberry Bog, rather than taking the loop as we had originally planned. Was hoping to see some pitcher plants, but didn't see any along the hike at all. We headed back to Point Grondine for the night, hoping to get some well deserved rest to hike the famous Crack the next day.
We both slept a lot better that night, and got up early and started our hike around 9:30am. As the ranger at the trailhead mentioned to us, the hike started deceptively easy, but then we were hit with lots of elevation and scrambling, which is quite uncommon for Ontario hikes! It was a great time getting up and we didn't find it hard at all, even though it's considered one of the "hardest hikes in Ontario". When we reached the summit, we stuck around and made some instant noodles for lunch and began our trek back down and back home.
After getting home, we counted the number of bites we had -- MZ had 60 bites, and I had 77! That's definitely a record, although they were completely manageable and didn't itch much the day after. Really looking forward to doing more in Aotearoa (New Zealand).