Walk With Me Through The Woods Of Quebec

Although it was a little overcast, it was a pretty nice day and I managed to get my dogs out for one of the last hikes of the season through the woods along the water. It's a little too hard to walk along this trail when the snow gets too deep because of some of the steep cliffs. I've tried it a few times with snowshoes in the past. It is possible, just not very enjoyable to be climbing along the rocks with snowshoes strapped to my feet. During the winter I usually stick to the farmer's fields for snowshoeing and skiing.

I moved to Quebec about 3 years ago and the person that I bought my house from actually showed me the first half of the trail. They had mentioned that there is a way up to the top of the mountain but I couldn't find a very defined path the first few times I tried and I ended up bashing through some thick woods to climb up to the top.

After a while, I decided to make my own trail to the top and it's been my go-to hiking spot ever since. Enjoy the pictures as you walk with me through the woods of Quebec.

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The trail starts out just down the road from my house and goes along "La Baie de Ha!Ha!" How you could name something that and be serious about it is beyond me. Anything is possible in Quebec, I suppose, and I'm sure there is a story behind it; I just don't know it.

The water is just beginning to freeze over now. Before long the bay will be filled with ice fishing shacks, roads, and street signs. They take their ice fishing serious up here.

This fallen tree just about marks the spot where the beaten trail stops and my trail starts. I sort of left a bit of a gap between the two to keep down the traffic on my part of the trail. Not that I would mind if people used it because it's not my land. It's that people are assholes and tend to leave garbage behind when there is no reason for it. I actually saw a bag of dog shit along the first part of the trail. Who picks up their dog's shit in the woods and then leaves it like that in a blue plastic bag?

So, unless you already know the trail is there, you're not finding it easily.

The first little clearing I come to about halfway up the 90-meter climb to the top sort of reminds me of a Fred Penner hideaway. The sun is always shining, there is never any wind, the birds seem to sing louder, and there is never any sign of people there.

The final bit of trail to the top.

This is the very top of the mountain. It's a 90-meter climb from the water to the top, along a 3.5 km trail.

Not long after I continued along the trail back down, I came across this tree I pass all the time. Looks like a woodpecker was a little hungry and was looking for something inside this tree. I hope whatever it was tasted delishious because it looks like a lot of work for a bird to make these holes down low for nothing.

If it wasn't a woodpecker, maybe something else was expecting to have a little more snow by now.

This next part of the trail is filled with fallen trees. It doesn't matter how many I seem to clear out of the way, there always seems to be more down each time I'm here.

And sure enough, there were three more trees that needed to be cleared out of the way. Luckily I came prepared with my trusty SOG. It's got a good bit of weight to it and it's wicked sharp so it makes quick work of these trees. I usually just cut one side and drag the top off the trail so it's easy to get by. I've cut through enough just in this one spot I could probably have made a log cabin out of them.

After cleaning up the rest of the trees, I continued along and found my yellow lab sitting like this waiting for me. It isn't hard to tell he's getting tired and he seemed completely defeated by this blocked part of the trail. Even though I just walked around this one on the left, I think he might have been waiting for me to clear it off the trail.

With the sun starting to set, I headed along the remainder of the trail.

Being the only person through this part of the woods since it last snowed, there were rabid, squirrel, bird, and deer tracks all over the place. But, when I came out along the treeline there was an absurd amount of rabbit tracks in this one location.

And finally, heading back down towards the water to head home.

I hope you enjoyed the pics. The next one will probably be more like "ski with me" or "snowshoe with me."