I’m back at Topaz Lake!

Rather, I’m back at Topaz Lake with two others. Soheil (my hiking partner and mentor from the Bruce Trail experiences) and Josh, a friend of his, are at Topaz Lake in Killarney Provincial Park. Regrettably, Ron, my partner last year, injured his shoulder a couple of weeks ago and had to back out. Shucks …

We drove up this morning, had excellent pickerel and chips at Hurlburt’s in the town of Killarney, booked in at the Park Office and were on the trail by 1 P.M.

Killarney has had rain, lots of rain in the last few days, I was concerned that the trails might be wet and muddy. Not so — so far! We had sunny skies, good winds through the trees, and pleasant temperatures of about 14°. Great hiking conditions!

With all the rain of the last month or so, the mushroom crop is spectacular! I’ve seen well over 40 species, mostly ones I can’t identify other than confirm that they’re different than the others. (This is Amanita muscaria, the fabled poisonous/hallucigenic fly agaric.)

(This and following posts about hiking the LaCloche Silhouette Trail in Killarney Provincial Park are regrettably almost three weeks old …)