Winter Adventures | Limberlost Forest and Wildlife Reserve

Well, my 3-week break from school is over and I go back tomorrow for the second semester of my photography program. I squeezed in another adventure before I get too busy to do more than just micro-adventures between school, homework, projects and work.

It didn’t take long for me to return to the Limberlost Forest and Wildlife Reserve. In fact, it was exactly 6 days! I spent New Year’s Day at the reserve snowshoeing and having a cookout (read all about it, here). There are many trails to explore, so we returned to do more adventuring.

Banjo and I ready for another adventure!

Environment Canada issued a snow squall warning for Huntsville with 15 centimetres of snow, and you can see those snow squall/dark clouds lingering in the background when we arrived in the photograph below.

We ended up doing the Turtle Lake Trail again, but this time did the whole thing (8kms). It was a beautiful, but cold day.

The section north of Turtle Lake is my favourite

Starting out at Clear Lake to snowshoe the Turtle Lake Trail

A perfect day and place to go snowshoeing

These guys are probably talking about gear! — Just waiting for the photographer, me, to catch up!

Crunch, crunch, crunch. I love the sound of that crunch!

Shoeing into my favourite section of the Turtle Lake Trail

Climbing a ridge that follows a creek. My favourite section of the trail! — Climbing a ridge that follows Nelson River. My favourite section of the trail!

At a higher elevation, the forest changed from mostly conifers to deciduous. Beautiful!

We just weren’t ready to leave after we did the Turtle Lake Trail and we still had lunch to heat up for our cookout. We went back to the Check-In Booth and opted to do the Buck Lake Trail which is 8.5km around the lake.

screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-12-47-19-pm

I like the resourcefulness of this place. Why throw out a perfectly good sign because a word is misspelled? — I dig the resourcefulness of this place. Why throw out a perfectly good sign because a word is misspelled? It adds character and humanity.

When we started snowshoeing on the Buck Lake Trail in the afternoon, the clouds rolled out showing the bluest sky I think I’ve ever seen! That could be an exaggeration. I just haven’t seen the sun or blue sky for weeks with all the snow we’ve been getting here in Muskoka.

Sky is blue and there's nothing I can do — Sky is blue and there’s nothing I can do

We didn’t make it all the way around Buck Lake. Once we stopped for our cookout, we decided to snowshoe back and call it a day. It was around 3pm when we reached Bo Bo Ska Diddle (our means of transportation).

I can’t say enough about how awesome the Limberlost Forest and Wildlife Reserve is! Neighbouring Algonquin Park, it’s a great place to spend the day ~~for free~~ in thousands of acres of wilderness. I’ll be there again, so you might run into me!

Thank you so much for checking out my little adventure. I truly love just getting out with my camera and making photographs. I especially love photographing winter and the contrast of sky and land. What a beautiful land we live on.

Do you have a trail or place recommendation for me? Leave me a comment!

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