Challenge Hike #2

Another hike and more changes. Chris and I headed to Elliot Lake at 6:15 for the 2 1/2 hour drive. We arrived with a few minutes to spare and just had enough time to put on our boots when Emily arrived. Since Emily is from the area, she had taken a drive the previous day to check out the access point and discovered that they were fixing a culvert making the drive not very appealing. Emily suggested that we change our end point to Spine beach and if we were looking to hike further we could backtrack. My philosophy is that if someone local suggests a change than who am I to disagree.

We followed Emily to Spine Beach and carpooled back to the Lookout point where we left our vehicle. It was nice to have Emily with us as she was able to point out many points of interest and give us some history of the area. There are a number trails in the area so it is important to follow the correct markers. In the Elliot Lake section of the Voyageur Trail the trail markers are yellow circular signs with an arrows pointing in the direction that the trail heads to. The white markers are used for Elliot Lake trails.

We started hiking directly off the parking area where there is a short side trail to a small lookout structure straight ahead. The Voyageur Trail heads to the right. Shortly after starting we reached the junction to the infamous Lung Buster trail on the left. Continuing on, the trail goes through an open deciduous forest where the leaves were just starting to turn with the occasional blush of orange or red. In a couple of weeks, the fall colours will make hiking a visual feast.

The trail follows along the top of the ridge and offers many viewpoints over the town of Elliot Lake including the construction area where the mall is being rebuilt. For those that don’t know the original mall had a portion of the rooftop parking area collapse into the mall area below, killing two women. We took a few moments at the viewpoint before continuing on.

View of the new mall construction.

Once the trail starts descending, the forest changes to a beautiful hemlock dominated area with lots of big granite rocks coated with moss and greenery all over. This is when I realized that my camera batteries were dead. Thank fully my phone can also take pictures. We climbed our way to the top of the ski hill, checked out the views and there trail starts descending off the ridges and we came to the back of a camp ground which leads to Westview Park. We decided to have an early lunch at a picnic table where we could look out onto the lake.

After lunch we continued on the trail which is located between housing developments and the lake at this point. There are many homeowners who landscape the back of their property down to the trail giving us glimpses of their homes. Often there are footpaths leading to small beaches or access points to the lake. The trail here is boardwalked in a lot of places making the walking easy unless of course the wood is wet. Wet wood can be very slippery.

We walked through wooded areas to beach areas. There are 3 public beaches which the trail crosses. Watch out for signs of goose, as they seem to like these areas as much as the people do. The last beach that we reached was Spine beach where Emily had left her vehicle. We decided to have Emily drive us back to the lookout where our car was and hike around there for a little bit before heading back home.             

After being dropped off, we hiked the trail down to the lake below and tried the Lung buster trail making a loop of just over a kilometer or so. This loop is certainly challenging but made my day when I made it back to the top.

Emily