This was a great nine day trip, starting at Orphan Lake and heading towards Gargantua. First two days the lake was totally calm, and then in 30min one night the waves picked up (we could hear them from far away at first) and then it was wavy and lound for the next week. Got to jump in and swim in the lake though, very cold! Some amazing sandy beaches along the way, but mostly pebble ones. Also, many sites had a little creek nearby with very cold spring water to keep us refreshed. We have seen a few eagles and bear tracks on a beach beside our tents one of the mornings. The raised beaches were super fascinating and I went digging at one campsite and found pebbles about 6 inches under the soil at varoius distances from the site up to almost 100m away from the shoreline! The lookouts before Rhyolite Cove were interesting, the trails was super rough, and near the top of the trail (around the middle of the three lookouts east of Rhyolite Cove) the forest was totally quiet, no wind, no birds, nothing - creepy! We had good weather with only one rainy day, interesting storm clouds and a few beautiful clear nights. Zina got to see her first shooting start on this trip too, followed by many others. We came back through Wawa and Chapleau.

That's why we came... These images are from an August 2008 backpacking trip to the Coastal Trail in Lake Superior Provincial Park. We spend one week in the park, starting at Gargantua Bay and hiking to Warp Bay, Devil's Chair, Indian Harbour and Chalfant Cove. Then we hiked back to Gargantua Bay and did a day hike towards Rhyolite Cove (after getting lost on the Cliffs of Mayhem - a little know 'side attraction'). Each of these places is stunning by itself, and different from all the others; from sandy beaches at Warp Bay to sharp volcanic rocks around Devil's Chair (which remined me a lot of Hawaii). The 2.5 billion year old reddish granite rocks next to the 1 billion year old volcanic rocks south of Gargantua were very interesting. We finished the trip off by a short stop at Agawa Rock to visit the Ojibwa pictographs. Janan was annoying the Mishipeshu by pulling on its tail, so he'll likely get a very big wave coming his way on the next trip...

There pictures were taken in the summer of 2000 during vacation near Thessalon. First one is by Agawa Canyon on the way to L.Superior from Ranger Lake, and the rest are in the park.