Kaladar Jack Pine Barrens Conservation Reserve - Day Four (May 22)

A good day. albeit not without mishap.  The rain stopped during the night, but the mists remained.  I slept later, not rising until 7:30 AM.  After breakfast, I pulled all of my damp things together and went off for a hike.

I walked west along the highway and then followed a track north into the barrens.  It didn't go far before crossing a small, pretty brook and then splitting in two directions.  One branch continued to climb up a densely forested ridge toward a pocket of private land.  The second slanted down the side of the ridge toward a stream.

I followed the upward track first, curious to see what lay at the end.  Fresh moose tracks cut sharp into the damp earth.  The track ended after a couple of hundred metres at a large, well-built cottage:  obviously a private hunt camp.  After confirming with the GPS and map that the cottage lay just over the boundary on private property, I turned back and followed the lower track toward the stream.

I crossed the stream by stepping stones.  The water danced by, clear and sparkling.  Trees overhung the shallow channel, forming a shady tunnel.  I climbed the rocky slope on the north side of the stream.  It opened up on to a circular, flat outcrop with a well-used camp circle of stones set in the middle.  Another short length of track led through more trees to the prettiest beaver pond that I'd yet seen in the rock barrens -- perhaps the prettiest that I've seen anywhere.

When I arrived at the beaver pond, the sky had cleared a bit, providing welcome stretches of sunshine.  I stayed by the lake for two hours, drying my jacket, pack and small items on the warm stone.  Alas, that's also where I dropped my camera in the lake.  I recovered it quickly, but it was out of commission for the remainder of the trip.

In the afternoon, I hiked west and north around the beaver pond, crossing it at one end by a well-established beaver dam.  I then followed the low ridge east along the north side of the chain of ponds, checking the rocks in each clearing as I came to them.  Just about the time that I'd decided to pick up my pace, with the threat of more rain hovering in the air, one more rock caught my attention:  a little more orange than the other rocks.

It lay just as Dave Seburn had predicted:  at the bottom of a rock outcrop, just where the soil began, on a south facing slope, surrounded by oak - maple forest.  I caught only a brief glimpse of the skink as I turned over the rock.  But there was no mistake:  the size, the speed, the shape, even the blue streak of the tail (a juvenile trait).  It dashed in an eyeblink under an adjacent rock and out of sight.  I left without disturbing it any further.  Big, big thrill.

I finished the hike by completing the circle along the ridges back to camp, skirting beaver ponds and wetlands the whole way, and crossing between ridges on beaver dams.  The threatening rain held off, and the sun came out again between 5 PM and 7:30 PM.  I walked to the edge of the nearby beaver pond after supper.  With my camera out of service, I resorted to my pencils and pocket sketch book to capture some sense of the evening.  Unfortunately, my limited skills were not up to the task, and it is difficult to tell from the sketch if one is looking at a marsh or a field.

As I settled into my tent in the darkness, the rumble of approaching thunderstorms crept closer.