Saturday Stories. #15 Hiking, Part 1.

Greetings everyone on this cool, cloudy and somewhat rainy Saturday! Hard to believe this is the last Saturday of April already. Spring is certainly with us in all of its ups and downs with weather. That is very typical. On another spring, years ago, the last Saturday of April was sunny and very warm. Tiny green leaves were beginning to show on some bushes and trees already.

It seemed like a perfect time for a hike. So, I got ready and went out for breakfast. I knew Krissy had a cold so she would not be able to come along, but I wanted to stop and see how she was doing anyway. It was fairly busy when I got there but once I had my breakfast everyone had gone so Krissy sat down to talk. “No fair going for a hike when I have a cold,” she said, “although it is a lot better now.”

Female Goldeneye ducks on the river.

Her mom came along just then. “If you take Krissy with you,” she said, “then you have to promise not to let her get wet.” “Oh, I can promise that,” I said. “Good, I will get ready to go,” said Krissy. “If she gets worse, then you can stay here and look after her until she is better,” said her mom, “and stay away from streams.”

“I was thinking of walking to a certain lake,” I said, “but no water to cross on the way.” That part was easy this time. We began the hike on a nice easy walking area through tall pines and very little undergrowth. But we soon found ourselves with a large swampy area in front of us. That was a big problem. Going around this would take a long time and we would be back quite late.

White-Throated Sparrow.

So, I looked at the map and we chose a different lake for our destination. It meant going through a small valley area, but fortunately no water to cross. Then we had to climb this rather steep hill which really slowed us down. But once to the top we got a wonderful view of the area and we could see the lake which was our destination.

We kept going and had to climb down this hill on the other side, which was easier than the first side and the walk from there to the lake was easy going too. The lake was larger than it looked on the map and had a nice sandy beach and a nice area for our picnic, right in the sun where it was very warm. While we were eating, however, there was a loud snap from a breaking branch right on the other side of a thick bunch of bushes next to us.

Tree Sparrow.

Krissy quickly moved over behind me. The smell told me it was likely a bear. With absolutely no wind, the smell of our food would likely be picked up by the bear very soon. We took our thermoses of coffee and moved away from the area to some higher ground where we could watch things and hopefully stay safe. Soon the bear came out sniffing.

“We should have taken our food,” said Krissy. “And the bear would have followed us,” I said. He found what was left of our lunch and quickly finished it. Then he stood up and began sniffing in our direction… Well, time to end this for now, but I will finish it next time. Have a great weekend everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2024 Steve McLeod.