Hiking the NCT Southwest of Bob Lake
At the end of my last post I shared the GoPro video from our Friday hike on the Peter Wolfe Chapter’s segment 30 of the North Country Trail to the southwest of Bob Lake and south of Pori. Located in the Ottawa National Forest, this portion of the trail is fairly remote as Mass City is probably the closest place with any significant services, although the Rousseau Bar is an important outpost that is somewhat nearby which is a great place to grab a burger and a cold one!
I shot about 80 photos on my phone and you can see them to music on the my Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/decompressu/. We encountered some very brief rain showers while hiking in ideal temperature conditions in the upper 60s. Most importantly, there were no mosquitoes and no ticks encountered on the hike.
At the start of segment 30 as we headed east is what has been identified to us as a Native American marked tree which has been protected from the current select logging activity being carried out in this part of the Ottawa National Forest.
Julie and I ran across a similar one last year while hiking the North Country Trail segment between the Sturgeon River and Plumbago Creek to the west of Canyon Falls.
Hiking eastward on segment 30, we came across trillium and trout lilies in bloom along the trail.
We also saw a really good sized garter snake enjoying the mild weather.
A good deal of work has been done in this segment to add wire mesh to the surface of the planks crossing the numerous wet places in the segment. Without the mesh, these can become quite slick in wet conditions.
If you haven’t noted it before, I take a strong interest in burls that form on trees. These gnarly features certainly add to the character of the forest and help reinforce memories of specific places.
Yellow birch are frequently candidates for the growth of chaga and this one was right alongside the trail.
The brighter greens from the budding trees and undergrowth give the forest a unique character at this time of year which is made all the more enjoyable with the limited number of insects.
Marsh marigolds are a prevalent feature on this segment and add a nice splash of color!
We also came alongside a significant beaver dam with quite an impoundment built up behind it.
We hiked right at six miles which added a nice dent to our #hike100NCT for 2024.
Upon returning home and after darkness fell, we hoped to get in on the significant aurora activity being experienced throughout the country. Unfortunately, the sky remained overcast. We did have one break in the clouds that allowed us to spy on a little of its brilliance.
Saturday morning we got out with a group of about twenty Lions Club members, families, and friends for the highway clean up along US 41 in Chassell which resulted in sixteen bags of trash over the two-mile stretch.
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