My next destination was the rapids where McCrae Lake dumps into Georgian Bay. This is a much easier destination for a paddle than a hike, but it was a nice day on the trail. Once I left the crowds at the cliff I didn’t see anyone else until I got to the rapids. I was moving pretty quickly so as not to give the bugs a chance to find me, but I did take a break to enjoy the view and catch my breath at the heron rookery. I was worried that I’d scared her away from her nest, so I was glad to see that she was back when I returned.
After two weeks of rain we finally had a nice weekend forecast. I had been planning to go camping, but those plans fell through when my paddling partner bailed on me. There were two new caches at McCrae Lake that were still unfound so I had a new destination for a hike instead of a paddle. But the new caches weren’t really my target. There’s a cache nearby on Bears Head Lake that’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There was no obvious way to get there other than to bushwhack through the woods.
McCrae Lake is always popular, and the sunny weather had brought out droves of people. Parking my car in the only tight spot I could find was almost harder than the first part of my hike.
The Trail
There’s a hiking trail around McCrae Lake that leads to the cliffs at the west end of the lake. The cliffs are a popular destination for climbers and were where the first cache “It’s A Cliffhanger” was hidden. I met lots of climbers at the clifftop. When I finally stopped enjoying the view, found the cache, and opened the log I discovered that I’d missed the FTF by just over an hour! The trail was indeed crawling with geocachers.
My next destination was the rapids where McCrae Lake dumps into Georgian Bay. This is a much easier destination for a paddle than a hike, but it was a nice day on the trail. Once I left the crowds at the cliff I didn’t see anyone else until I got to the rapids. I was moving pretty quickly so as not to give the bugs a chance to find me, but I did take a break to enjoy the view and catch my breath at the heron rookery. I was worried that I’d scared her away from her nest, so I was glad to see that she was back when I returned.
The trail is sparsely marked in places. I actually prefer that to an over marked trail, but I did lose it a few times as I got near the next new cache, “Chuck And Kevin Get A Little Erratic”. Once I almost wandered into a campers back yard. Whoops. When I finally found the cache I saw that I was just half an hour behind a different cacher on this one, and another group was just fifteen minutes behind me!
I lost the trail again and ended up bushwhacking to the rapids. I walked right past the large cross on the hill, and had an interesting descent. I stopped on the rocks overlooking the rapids to cook myself a burger for lunch. In retrospect bringing the stove and burgers for lunch was probably overkill, but it did make for a hearty snack before attempting my destination cache for the day, “Bears Head”.
The Bushwhack
Since I was going to be bushwhacking I needed to do some planning before I set out. I didn’t have a trail map so I didn’t know exactly where the hiking trail was, but by studying the satellite photos before I set out I was able to design a trail that I thought would connect with it. My biggest worry was getting trapped behind a marsh or bog that would be too difficult to cross, so I drew a line on the map that followed the rocky outcrops as much as possible. I also downloaded the satellite photos to my Oregon so I could see where I was as I walked in case I ran into some difficulties.
After all that planning I almost didn’t make the attempt. When I got to my lunch spot I examined my track and saw where the trail would cross my planned bushwhack. The distance would be about 2 kms one way, as the crow flies, and it was getting late in the day. I decided that if I could get to the start of the bushwhack by 5:30 I’d make the attempt.
I got there with 5 minutes to spare, so I decided to go for it. The vegetation is fairly sparse, and I was able to make reasonable progress. It was a little tricky to stick to the line that I’d drawn on the map, and following the contours of the land was quite exhausting because there was much more up and down than on the marked trail. I knew my plan was working when I got to one of the turns in my planned track and saw that I had just avoided a large bog.
It wasn’t all roses however. I was 340m from the cache when I came to a wet soggy area that I had to cross. Despite some hummock hoping I got double soakers. Still, it was a lot better than crossing the marsh right next to the lake. I don’t know if it’s a common occurrence, or a result of all the recent rain, but the marsh is overflowing into the lake and washing a swath of vegetation off the rocks between the two.
As soon as I stopped moving the skeeters swarmed me, and I had to look for the cache quickly. Fortunately it was a very easy find. Bears Head lake is quite pretty, but the bugs and the time of day mean that I signed the log quickly and ran. I was quite surprised to see two parallel tracks worn into the moss on the rocks near the cache. Obviously there’s a way to get an ATV in here, and it was quite surprising to find out that this was a ‘roadside’ cache. The only other things that broke the spell of being isolated in the bush were the sounds of boats nearby on Georgian Bay, and a lone piece of flagging tape I spotted while deep in the bush.
Getting back to the trail was a little easier than getting to the cache. In the end it was a 5k bushwhack and took an hour and forty minutes. After that it took another hour and a half walking on the trail to make it back to my car just 15 minutes before sunset. I stopped at the top of the cliff on my way out to catch my breath and enjoy the view.
Tips
Like my other trips to McCrae Lake my geocaching may have led me astray. The bushwhack to the cache was the least scenic and most difficult part of my trip. So unless you intend to find the cache I wouldn’t recommend it. But I’m still pretty glad that I went :-). If you want to camp at McCrae Lake you’ll find it far easier to canoe in than to hike, but hiking is a possibility as there are a few campsites not far from the trail.