Remembrance Hike

Last Thursday was another beautiful Remembrance day and time for our annual “last of the good weather “ hike in the park. Bryan, Mike and I decided to head up to Lac Phillippe this year and maybe walk up to Lusk cabin. Add to that Bryan had a new camera and was itching to “break it in” (not literally of course) so we met up at the visitor center, dropped one car and then drove up to P19. Walked in along the closed campground road and dropped down to the beach for a little bit to take some shots of the birds and the sun shining on the lake. After a loop through the campground we walked up to “Phillipe” cabin to have a quick snack. Twas here that a crew of four CF 18’s circled low over us in an impressive display. I suppose they were killing time before their Remembrance day fly past of the cenotaph downtown. They actually made two passes before roaring off into the wild blue yonder all in tight formation.

Birds flaunting the rules
After a short break we opted to head towards Taylor lake rather than up to Lusk. Not sure why we chose that option but there you go. No fixed agenda so no harm wandering where we like. Interesting to see a lot of dump truck traffic on the road out to Taylor Lake. Seems they’re re-grading the road around the lake with some fresh gravel. I checked carefully for shards of glass mixed in the gravel as we walked in but didn't spot any. Then again, perhaps my qualifications as a construction materials engineer aren’t up to scratch here and we’ll have to wait and see the true experts pass judgment on the quality of the job ;-).

Fisheye mirror - presumably to watch for oncoming hikers

We stopped at the Taylor lake yurt to have a little lunch. My stove is in some need of a little service but I finally managed to get it fired up long enough to heat up some soup. The lunch spot seemed like a good idea at the time but halfway through our meal the construction crew finished their lunch and fired up the graders and vibratory compactors. Bit of a raucous din ensued which wasn’t really our game plan for a quiet lunch spot. Ah well. With the noisy machines on the roads we decided to loop back on trail 55 in the opposite valley to get some peace and quiet. Beautiful trail through there. Certainly a favourite ski loop but today the waxing was a little tricky. All in all a beautiful day and a good one to take some time in remembrance of those that sacrificed to let us enjoy the things we love.

Lunch shared with a vibratory compactor... nice :(
Today I took some time to roller ski up to the Champlain lookout. I’ve done a little roller skiing this fall on the D-loop and out at the Lac Phillipe campground but this was the first time this season up the big hills. Haven’t done much road biking up there this summer either. Is it me or did they make the climb up the Fortune parkway bigger over the summer? ... maybe just seems that way. Guess I’ll have to go up it a few more times before the snow flies to “recalibrate”.

Gasp, wheeze... perhaps I should have ridden my bike...