It Ain’t Easy Being Me!

All I can do right now is, go out, now and then, to check on the conditions in the bush so, that is just what I was doing, on this outing.  I had made a mental note of a few places that I wanted to get into, during the winter, and so, I went to one of those places to see if it might be possible to get in there.  As you can see, from the map above, I was able to make my way into this area but, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.  Let’s take a look at how things went.

First of all, I am now able to park next to Prodan’s Pond, to have my coffee and banana and, I took this shot there, before I went to the location on the map.

As you can see, the meltdown is progressing, although, the whole process ended up being much slower than I thought it would be.  Some of the bigger lakes are starting to show signs of breaking up too but, I think that the idea of me getting my kayak back in the water, before May 1st, is now just a pipe dream.  Where is my pipe!!  🙂

 

This is the bush road that I will be going in on and, you can see that there is still plenty of snow in here.

The depth of the snow was variable but, in some places, it was up to 2 feet deep.  This is extremely difficult stuff to hike in and, it saps the energy right out of you.  Snow shoes are useless in this kind of soft, wet snow and, I did not wear my snowshoes on this hike.

This is a moose track and, although it looks pretty old, it’s not.  The snow is melting quickly now so, tracks can become old looking fast.  I was following the tracks that this moose made and, I was not the only one.

Right on the heels of this moose were these very large canine tracks, probably a wolf.

The Serpent River is almost fully thawed out now, because of the flow and, these flowing rivers eat into the ice on the lakes, to help them also thaw.

Nearly all the open areas are free of snow now and, unless you go into the bush, you’d never know that there was still so much snow on the ground in there.

This is one of those things that you can’t put into words.  You really have to experience it, personally, to know how difficult it is, hiking in this kind of stuff.

Not only is the snow an issue, I also have to deal with melt-water throughout the bush.

Some areas of this trail, that receive a lot of sunshine, were clear but, I will be going off trail here so, that didn’t help me too much.

This is why I have to come in and look because, you never know which areas might be clear and, I was fortunate that, this particular area was completely clear of snow.

I’m going to be making my way up this gravelly hill, trying to get to the highest point that I can.

This surface was very loose and, it wouldn’t be difficult to lose your footing and, go for a scree slide.  But, it was a heck of a lot easier than hiking in that snow!  🙂

The view of the river and, surrounding area, was real nice up here.

I guess they call this stuff ‘old man’s beard’ and, some people use it as tinder, for making fires but, I’ve never used it myself.  I always use birch bark.

Getting high in the wilderness is one of my favorite things to do.  🙂

I like being able to see for long distances around me and, soon, I will be able to bring that experience to my blog readers, with some new technology.

I’m going to try and put that written explanation about the drone at the bottom of this post.

I moved around a bit, at the top of this area, trying to get some different shots.

And so, I made my way, back down off that hill, without any mishaps and, headed back out, towards the truck.

Again, there was a lot of very difficult snow to get through, on the way out.

Back out on Panel Mine Road, I took this shot of the swollen Serpent River, heading towards Quirke Lake.

The beauty of nature knows no bounds.  Feast your eyes on the natural designs of this fine foam, along a quiet section of the Serpent River.

More intricate natural designs.  🙂  Click on the photos to enlarge them, to get the full effect.

Okay,  so now, I’m going to do a bit of a write-up on why I chose the particular drone that is supposed to be arriving via UPS today.  You may not be all that interested in my opinions or, in drones and that’s just fine.  This is why I chose to put it at the end so, if you are not interested, just skip that part.  🙂

Well, on second thought, I have now received my new drone and, I will do a separate complete blog post on this so, I’ll just put this post up now.