Day 6: Sucker Creek is for Suckers....

June 5: We woke up relatively early for Amanda to throw us out on the trail and head to work. It was the end of our slackpacking days.

The drive to the trailhead we finished the day before took the better part of an hour--we really should have moved camp further up the trail a day or two earlier, but Blueberry and I arrived at the trailhead on Lismore Road and Amanda drove off into the proverbial sunset.

Right from the trailhead, the trail was muddy and wet!

The day didn't start well--immediately requiring us to tromp through mud and water following parallel to Lismore Road. It was a sign of what we would be going through almost all day--extremely muddy and wet trails! We followed snowmobile routes for much of the day, and the sun was hot and the air was humid.

We didn't see a single hiker the entire day, either! Clearly, they had a lot more sense than we did. =)

Near Heron Pond, I saw moose tracks on the trail and scanned the marshy areas for the elusive moose but spotted nothing.

We didn't stop for breaks very often and our stops were short due to the bugs. We took a short break in an area that had recently been clear cut, but finally got a real rest on the bridge over Sucker Creek. Away from the thick vegetation and with a slight breeze flowing downstream, the bugs weren't so bad and butterflies flitted about.

We napped, we read our books, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Blueberry pulled off a few more ticks and I pulled off a couple myself.

We stopped for a couple of hours at the bridge before pushing on the rest of the way to the Fox Farm Pond campsite--our destination for the evening. Blueberry left first, and I followed maybe 10 minutes later.

When I arrived at the campsite, located next to a scenic beaver pond, Blueberry was already working on a campfire. We set up our tarps since rain was in the forecast for the night and performed very thorough tick checks on ourselves--the number of ticks we found on ourselves today was staggering! Blueberry's final count for the day was 18 ticks while I pulled off 13. I was glad for the long pants I wore--the vast majority of the ticks I pulled off never even reached my skin and none of them had drilled into me yet.

We chatted over the campfire for the rest of the evening, surprised at how late the sun set. At these high latitudes in June, it didn't get dark until after 10:00!

Heron Pond

Evidence of beaver! This tree was clearly felled by a beaver.

Not only is there a Sucker River, but the Sucker River Campsite is located by it as well. We weren't idiots, though. We knew that only suckers camp by the Sucker River! =)

Blueberry takes a break on the bridge over the Sucker River.

Blueberry tells us about his day...

This was the only wildlife I saw... and I only got his photo because he moved so slowly!

Beaver dam--it's amazing what those beavers can do!