Walking in the forest - Hardy Lake Park

On a Sunday afternoon...What to do? Can't walk into town, since the sledders have taken over the sidewalk.

Instead, we drove to a lovely local trail: Hardy Lake.

 

The trail is fabulous, with many choices around the lake itself, depending upon your endurance and equipment levels! 

The bonus was: no dogs off leash, and NO sledders. Not that the family with the screaming 3-year old, grumpy preteen, and the dog running about loose payed attention! (No photos out of respect for the guilty.) The first part of the trail, just before the 'you are here' on the map, is a bower of pine needles, with sun warming your bones.

We spotted lots of wee tracks: mice and such. Some snowshoe tracks, although you didn't need them on OUR path, with the foot & dog traffic the path was tamped down.

The path to the SW on the map was quite mushy, you really needed snowshoes or X-country skis for that one. We were not sure how long we could last, there was a chill in the afternoon, with the sun low on its axis, and took a short route. It was delightful.

The trail has a wide range of topgraphy. From open marshes with frozen bulrushes standing like sentinels to a productive summer-

to heavily wooded mixed forests that keep down snow levels and allowed for middle-aged folks to plod around trees, up hills and down through the creeks that drain the land into the lake water.

You can see from my photos how thick our forests. No wonder we've had the incidents that we have had on the trails across the region.

Just a spectacular walk about. We were tired at the end of it!

There was more evidence of the hurricane that ravaged our region last summer. You can see snowshoers across the lake. 

And evidence of large 4-legged creatures that ignore the human tracks, hunting desperately for a meal.

Wonderful tribute to Andy J. Potts

We made it back to the beginning. The memorial to one of our fallen OPP officers sits by the road. Andy J. Potts (1975 - 2005), who died in a collision while on duty, going to a domestic call down highway #169. He and his fellow officer hit a moose in the wee hours of the morning. Such a tragedy. It was a day my mom was to travel to the city for radiation. They took a long detour around since the road was closed.

 To sooth my weary muscles (remember my big walk in the forest on Saturday?), hubby took me out to dinner, with wine and dessert. While this might defeat the purpose of the big 1 1/2 hour walk...well, my hips will never be those of my youth! It was a lovely decadent end to the day and my wine eased my pain! And, yes, the wine is in focus, and the cake is not. What can I say?