I just came home today from my first solo camping trip.  Yes, solo!  In fact, I think this was my solo trip full stop.  Any other time I’ve been travelling, I’ve either met up with someone on the other end or went on a tour or an exchange.  They’ve all been wonderful experiences but this was a chance to do something completely on my own, to somewhere I’ve never been, and had to completely occupy myself.  Plus, I didn’t exactly go to civilization either so problems would have been completely up to me to handle.  No friends, parents, or CAA to help – I would have to solve my own problems!  I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little scared to go on my own, especially in bear country but on the other hand, it’s one of those life lessons that few people seem to ever take.  Sure, people travel but they seem to always go with friends or family or to visit people on the other end.  And as cool as that is (and as jealous as I am when people take those trips without me), it’s not quite the same.

So, why camping…in September?  I love the outdoors!  Unfortunately, I don’t get to camp very often.  I’m not a fan of campgrounds during the summer months.  It’s like being in your backyard except someone took down all the fences!  It’s often too hot and there’s little to see or do because the animals are too hot…or scared.  So, you sit on the beach getting skin cancer – yippie!  Sorry but that’s definitely not my thing!  When I camp, I go to get back in touch with nature.  Yeah, the weather is a tad more unpredictable and cool, no more full service sites, and there can sometimes be a few too many critters on the move but at least it’s a real experience; something vaguely more similar to what our ancestors did.  You know: no electricity, movies, or giant RV’s from hell!

Now that I’ve explained the reason for the solo camping trip – which I’m sure satisfied no one (ya’ yellow-bellied chickens!) despite the great joy it gave me to go on – here’s my trip!  I headed north east to Narrow Hills Provincial Park which is about 300km from Saskatoon (if you believe my odometer).  I was going to go a little earlier but due to weather concerns (as in – I didn’t want to hike in 25C + weather!) so I went on Monday September 16th and came home on the 18th.  I never thought much about this campground since I’d never heard about anyone going to it.  However, this past summer, a few people told me about Gem Lakes and I started to research it out.  I’ll go into detail about those in a second but needless to say, I decided to go and I am so glad that I did!  Such a beautiful camp ground!

Apparently, in this area of the forest, there’s this tiny cluster of ‘kettle lakes’ – lakes that were formed by glaciers and filled only by the underlying water table as they are not connected in any way to each other – and a 5.5km trail that takes you around these little bodies of water.  These are the Gem Lakes.  Each lake – Jade, Opal, Sapphire, Diamond, and Pearl – got their name because of the colour of the water…sort of.  Reflections from the surrounding forest seem to ‘tint’ the lakes although, with the changing autumn weather turning the leaves yellow and orange, I didn’t exactly see these colours.  What I did see though was sheer beauty.  The trail, while well marked, is considered semi wilderness and it is definitely a steep climb but worth every second of it.  Here are a few of the (unedited) pictures I took.

Overall, it was an amazing trip!  I got to hike a gorgeous little ‘Gem’ that’s fairly unknown here, did some kayaking in a new lake, practiced my casting (throwing a fishing line, for those who don’t know), and generally, got to explore a new place – what more could I ask for?  Okay, maybe the weather could have be a tad better for my last 24 hours there and yes, it was fairly remote so anything could have happened but you know what?  Even if I stayed at home, the weather still would have been crummy and bad things could have still happened to me (my fault or by someone else hand) so why deny myself a new experience because of ‘what if’?  I took a chance and I would – no, I WILL do it again!