Inland Lake to Powell Lake. It’s a big lake!
First order of business after breaking camp on Anthony Island was to fashion a replacement walking pole. Luckily there was a cedar that had fallen on the trail, so I whitled a stout walking stick and set off up rhe rather steep 600m climb to Confederation Lake. Which I’m sure is not the only Lake so named in Canada.
There were some awesome fungi beside the trail, so taking a few snapshots was a good excuse for taking numerous walking breaks.
The SCT is billed as Canada’s longest hut-to-hut trail, but as the huts are officially closed due to Covid-19, the normal evening stopping places need to be reconfigured on the fly. Confederation Hut had an awesome location, so I paused long enough to brew a coffee before descending the same 600m back to Powell Lake. Along the way the naming committee had some fun, with The Valley of Exhaustion and Vomit Bluff being two of the more curious. I can endorse the former, but not to the extent of validating the latter.
The evening stop was at Fiddlehead Landing on Powell Lake, where there is another SCT hut. Unfortunately it is north-west facing, so there was only minimal sunlight late in the day to use my solar charger, and minimal sunshine to dry off after the obligatory plunge into the fresh water. As thw hut is perched on a steep slope, there are no tent sites. However, as I seemingly had the trail to myself, I pitched my tent underneath the hut, it being the only level ground around. Also meant that I didn’t need to use the tent fly.
And finally I met another trail user – a biker who had been trying to bike the trail, but had eventually determined that it was not suitable for bikes, and was now using logging roads. He wasn’t planning to stay at the hut, which was a relief, as after two full days of solitary existence, having to share the site with someone that could talk the bark off a cedar tree waa not high on my wish list!
2saunter 