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The rest of the trip back to Whiteshell was dark, but uneventful. In the end I had made a big looping "E" shape around the west side of my point.
On getting home, I did the standard... turned on the TV, flipped channels stopping at news and various science documentaries, etc... played a couple computer games, and tried to start doing my trip log for the previous day.
But before I knew it, I fell asleep, right there on the couch. I must have been very tired. I slept 12 hours straight, right there on the couch. Never even moved to the bed. Yawn!
Having not finished my log before sleeping, as soon as I woke up, I decided to do that. As usual, I was not efficient, and also played games and watched TV and paced up and down and all that sort of thing, At some point though I decided I needed to get up and get dressed and head out before the entire day was done.
So I got up. Got all dressed in all the many layers of warm clothes. I am not good at being efficient on these things either. After each noe article of clothing added, I would sit on the couch for 10 minutes or so before collecting myself to put on the next sock or whatever. When I am in no rush, I definately take advantage of that. 40 minutes to put on shoes? What, that's slow? Hey, it's vacation. I'm not going to hurry for anything. Vacations are all about relaxing. If I have a day that is mostly sleep and resting and relaxing by the TV, all the better!
By the time I was all ready, it was only about two hours until sunset. I decided that I would just hike a bit near by the cabin. There were a number of hiking and snowmobile trails in the area, I'd check a few of them out. I figured I could head out for about an hour, then turn around and be home before it got dark. Behing home before dark would be good.
It was a bit warmer this day, the temperature actually peaked above freezing. Otherwise it was clear and crisp. And no wind. Great for hiking. I had my GPS with me, and my general goal was to see how close I could get to my point just walking from here. The numbered highway officially ended right at Big Whiteshell Lodge, but the road actually continued to the Northeast from there. So that's how I started.
After a bit, there was a fork in the road. I took the right hand fork.
After a bit, it forked again. This time I took the left hand fork. It became more of an ATV path rather than a full fledged road.
It eventually came down to a lake. It was going in exactly the right direction toward my point. But there was a lake there.
Now, there were footprints going across from where I was across the lake. And given the recent snow, those footprints had to be recent. Someone had walked across the frozen lake and not very long ago. It was probably walkable. I was tempted.
But no. In the end, I took the route of caution. I did not particularly want to fall through the ice and drown while freezing to death. I did not know the ice or conditions myself. The temperature was above freezing. The ice may be thinner than when whoever it was walked across. I was out of cell range, and I was alone. If anything happened, I'd be screwed. So, as tempting as it was... no walking across the frozen lake for Sam.
So I turned around and headed back to the last fork in the road, and took the other path, which was still an actual road. There were some hills and ups and downs, and some icy patches where I almost slipped, but for the most part by staying in the snow covered parts, there was plenty of tracction. After a few hills and ups and downs and twists and turns, the road ended in a little cul-de-sac. On the far side there was a sign indicating this was the beginning of a 60 km hiking trail. Woo!
And the trail headed the direction I wanted to go for the first few miles before turning away to the southeast. It passed along the side of Big Whiteshell Lake, then over to the other side of the lake, where it connected to a path leading to Crowduck lake. In turn, my actual spot would eb on the other side of Crowduck, although there was no path there. Great! This is where I would go next.
Of course, there was this other sign too.
Trail extremely difficult. Oh, and the first sign said this trail was for experts, and don't go without telling somebody where you were going, without having a four day supply of food with you, etc.
Well, I was only planning on going maybe half an hour in. I could ignore that, right? Difficult. Well, lets see how far I could go.
I was able to go about half a mile down the path until I discovered what difficult meant. At this point the patch came right up to the shore of Big Whiteshell Lake, and followed along the shore.
But there was a stream that flowed into the lake. You had to cross the stream to continue. It was a
rapidly flowing stream. It was not that wide though. Maybe just a few feet. I could probably step across it. I could definately jump across it.
But then I looked at the "land" on the other side. The water was flowing out from under it!!! It was apperantly an overhang of frozen dirt, covering more flowing water.
I had no idea of its stability. And it looked like there was more water to ford a few hundred feet up. Possibly a good deal of the path continuing forward would be like this. "Difficult".
I loitered around for several minutes, deciding if I shuld jump over onto that next piece of land. But I kept looking at the water flowing from underneat, and determined in the end that I would once again play it safe. I could just see me jumping, and it collapsing under me, and me ending up flat on my face in mud, with freezing cold water and ice flowing all around me, soaking me with a 2 mile hike back to the cabin. No, that would not be good. Had I been with a group, perhaps. But alone? No. Time to head back.
I headed back. After the hiking trail back to the road. On the road past the fork that had gone down to the other lake, then finally back to the first fork in the road. To the left just a few hundred feet was my cabin. I could head back now. But no, I still had an hour or so until sunset, so I headed the other direction, following the road I had not yet taken.
Before too long, it had an offshoot to the right. I took it. It was just a little loop through what appeared to be a colony of young Christmas trees.
Back to the main road. It was now time that I really should just head back if I was going to get back to the cabin before dark. But there was still an unexplored road to the right. And the path hadn't been too difficult. I could do that in the dark if I had to. So I headed right. I went until the road ended.
But then I noticed that continuing on from there was a snowmobile path.
Now, on the map I had, I had seen a snowmobile track coming from around this spot, circling around and eventually coming back to the main road. It was getting close to the point of no return, where it would definately be dark before I got home if I didn't turn around immediately. Oh well.
I followed the snowmobile tracks. Several times I thought they ended, but then I found them again. It went further and further from the lodge. But eventually it started curving back. Yea! It was definately getting toward sunset now. The shadows were long and everything was turning orange. I kept treking onward. I realized I was no in territory that would be hard to backtrack in the dark. This might not be the smartest thing in the world. But I kept going.
Until I got to the end. I thought the trail would continue. But no, on a bit of a knoll, all the snowmobile tracks made a loop, and headed back. There was no track or visible trail going forward. Just woods. Passable woods. Bushwacking would have been quite possible. But not at sunset.
I turned around. There was no question, in the end I would be walking back in the dark. None the less, I tried to go as quickly as I could. The sun was now below the horizon. There was still the orange glow of diminishing twilight, but it was definately starting to darken quickly.
I walk back into the area of the lodge just as it is getting difficult to see and a flashlight would have been nice.
To my surprise, the store is still open, so I stop and get supplies. I was out of chips and coke. They have postcards and batteries too, so I get both of those. I talk to the woman at the counter a bit about what I've been doing the past few days. She suggested a place called Jennifer's for dinner. She called them and they said they would be open until "Almost 8". (That would be 2:00 UTC.) Good. That sounded like a possibility.
Then I head back to the cabin. On the way I saw the squirrel statue they had. It freaked me out every time I passed it.
My whole walk had ended up being a big V shape, with the lodge at the center, and a few small outshoots.
Now, after almost 2 hours 22 minutes of walking during which I'd gone 7.2 miles, I thought it might be time to revisit the jacuzzi. Definately wanted to get cleaned up before heading out again. So I filled it up and settled in for two more episodes of the Twilight Zone. This time the episodes were "Two" about the last two survivors of a nuclear war, and "The Four of Us are Dying" about a guy who could change his face.
When I was all wrinkled, I got out, and that was the end of Day 3.
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