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