Deep Freeze 2007 - Florida Lake

Lets go to Florida in February! I imagine most folks may have heard that once or twice. Well that’s exactly where we decided to go but it’s not the “Florida” most folks think of! This was “Florida Lake” the scene of Deep Freeze 2006 and we decided that we hadn’t yet exhausted all the possibilities for winter camping and hiking/exploring the area plus it had lots of firewood, a sheltered camping area and water. Dates were decided upon and plans were made and changed till it was time to go.

As usual folks gathered in Sudbury for the trip in using the Via rail service known as the “Budd Car”. The train is scheduled to leave at 9:00 am but fortunately it was a few minutes late and Linda and Brian who travelled up from the Toronto area managed to make train despite being 15 minutes late! The winter of 2007 was a milder winter with very little snow accumulation in the Sudbury area so the trail into the camp was decidedly rougher than the previous year, especially in the thicker bush areas, however through a team approach we managed to get everyone and their sleds and gear up to the site in only a few hours. The “hill” on the way in certainly hadn’t gotten any smaller or shorter since last year’s trip.The Budd Car runs 6 days/week, 3 days “up” or Sudbury to White River and 3 days “back” with Monday off. This allows folks to tailor their attendance to whatever their schedules allows.

Two of the attendees, Andrew and Dusan, decided on a slightly different approach this year and hiked into camp from Hwy 144 and then used the Budd car to head back to Sudbuury at ther end of their stay. They traveled across the lakes in Halfway Provincial Park and met up with a trail that Joe and some of the folks made from the Florida Lake side. 

With the comings and goings the Thursday was the day with the most folks in camp and we topped out at 41 total attendees. Once again Al Marcon entertained us all with an evening of song as he played his way through his song book. It was a very enjoyable evening spent around a large campfire with old and new friends and topped off with Al’s great rendition of Stan Roger’s “Northwest Passage” sung acapella - brought shivers up my back!

All in all another great trip filled with camp chores, hiking, visiting with old and new friends and even another couple vain attempts at catching some fish. “Wait till next year” was a common refrain from the fisherman and with the thought of heading back up the tracks to an area we refer to as “Scouter Lake” for the 2008 gathering, it just may happen!

Slideshow 

 Photo credits: SB or unattributed- S. Bredin, BP- B. Poort, CR- C. Rhodes, DD- D. Doyle