Riding Mountain National Park - May 2019, Part 2

Here's the second and third day of our 2019 May Long Hike in Riding Mountain National Park. The hike continued to be interesting, but since we want to get to some new topics and document all our trips I'm going to be doing more than one day per trail post going forward!

Date: May 19. 2019
Length: 17.65 km
Elevation: 343 m
Time: 6 hours 18 minutes

Whitewater Lake to Gunn Lake

Date: May 20. 2019
Length: 15.91 km
Elevation: 393 m
Time: 5 hours 14 minutes

Gunn Lake to Baldy Lake Trailhead

On day 2 we woke up early and hit the trail. The Central Trail in Riding Mountain is a nice easy hike, generally 3 to 4 people wide and with very gradual elevation changes. While we walked we were surrounded by spring finally starting in full. Trees were starting to bud and grass was growing. All the slight spots of green stood out in contrast with the beiges and greys that still lingered from winter.

One great part about the day was the crisp air and the bright blue sky. There were some fairly large clearings with a dark fringe of trees in the distance and a large never ending sky. Roslyn described standing in the middle of one of them as making you feel like a small prey animal. Fortunately for us (or maybe unfortunately!) we didn't see any predators around.

Coming into camp for the night we got a good walk up and down the ravine that is just before the Gunn Lake campsite. The actual camping area is raised up on a hill surrounded by thick brush and trees, so we weren't worried about water or wind! We started up a fire and set our tents up before having supper. We went to sleep fairly early again to get out of the wind and to try and get going early in the morning!

Waking up early, we enjoyed some time down near the water just poking around before heading out. The water was smooth as glass and there were some cool looking snails and bugs crawling about. We walked up and down the shore line for a bit just to see what was around.

The rest of the day passed pretty quickly. We were mainly walking through areas will tall stands of trees and the occasional beaver dam or marsh area with a raised trail. The scenery was still beautiful in a stark somewhat haunting way.

One moment of excitement happened just after lunch. We had just started down the trail when one of us noticed a dark black shape up ahead. It took us a couple seconds to realize is was a bear using the trail too! We shouted out the customary 'HEY BEAR' and the little black bear noticed us finally and sprinted off into the trees. After a couple minutes we headed out again and ended the last few hours without any more excitement (other than the normal I'm out hiking! excitement).