Sat, Jul 24 2010, Sun, Jul 25 2010 - Gary’s Survival Series #3 (View Original Event Details)
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This survival weekend put us at Gibson River Provincial Park (about 6 km east of highway #400 exit 174). The forecast was for thunder showers for late afternoon. The start of the day was overcast.
The 9 of use started out heading east on some ATV trails and the deer flies were on us. A combination of ATV trails, some bushwhacking and following a lightly travelled yellow blazed trail we traversed hills, swamps and a small river crossing to arrive at the Gibson river and our get LOST camping area.
We divided up into our GOT LOST pairings and set up our shelter, fire pits and collected water from the river. No rain, but the flies where on us. Bug jackets and smokie fires was our answer. We all built our shelters for a couple of hours.
By about 6-7 pm the skies were clearing and the temperature was dropping and we finally had some relief from the bugs. I went down to the river for a swim in a small pool. That was nice! It's great getting the days sweat off. By about 9pm it was time to call it a night. Misty was the first into the shelter. I lined my bedding area with pine branches and it smelt like I could be in an air freshener commerical. I covered Misty's head with a bug hat mesh. Slept like a log until 7:30 am.
We had a quick coffee and were off collecting the our pairings to get them UN-LOST. We checked out everyones camp and discussed their experiences. Suggestions for improvements were offered and we all made it back to my camp by 10am ish. Time for a good breakfast and conversation about what worked and what did not and why. No bugs yet. I managed to talked Mayte, Francois, Francoise and Andrew into going swimming in the river. Mayte and Francoise discovered the water massage area of the falls. It was great.
By 12 noon we headed out west, following the yellow blazed trail back to the marsh crossing point(beaver dam) where we then jumped on the ATV trail. It took us about 1.5 hours to cover the distance.
We drove down to Coldwater for a late lunch and compared who had the most bug bites. I think Francoise won that contest.
See you all soon.
Gary
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