Confederation Lake through to Fiddlehead Farm

How can you not love a trail with a lookout called "The Vomit Vista"?

 I know this section of trail quite well (okay, about as well as my swiss-cheese memory allows) since I have been up it twice, down it once and have meandered out to the "Vomit Vista" twice while visiting Confederation Lake from the Inland side.  

Not so long ago a fellow hiker commented on how he had been disappointed on his hike up to Confederation Lake because he expected a spectacular view after such an arduous climb.  He obviously had visited the lake on a cloudy day, so he missed the treasured view of the Rainbow Range rising above the low ridge that rings Confederation Lake. He also had not thought to walk the easy 800 meters beyond the cabin to enjoy the "Vomit Vista".  That view is the big payoff for all the sweat.

I'm not sure why it's called the Vomit Vista.  It's really not so vertiginous that one would get sick sitting there enjoying the view.  Certainly there are far more precipitous bluffs around...some of them in the hiker's near future.  Maybe one of the original trailbreakers had a 2-4 night prior to climbing up to the Vista and had to empty his bucket once there.  Either way, if you are looking for a view, then make sure you visit regardless of how you climb up to Confederation Lake.

One last look at the lake taken from the edge of the trail leading to Fiddlehead. Right about this point there is a branch heading down the Northshore of Confederation Lake which leads to a nice swimming spot.

The Rainbow Range from the Vista. Looking North.

Looking due East in April 2021

Looking due East in March 2020. Fair bit more snow a mere month earlier.

The first time I successfully hiked up to Confederation Lake, I came in from Fiddlehead Hut, having taken a water taxi from Mowat Bay.

The water taxi was a wonderful luxury, but hikers should be aware that one can easily drive into Fiddlehead Farm. You really don't even need a 4X4 to do so...you just need a car that you don't mind getting a few rock chips and scratches on the paint job. Use a beater like my old Xtrail or just borrow a car from the obnoxious uncle that got drunk at your wedding and vomited all over the dance floor.  

One other note: since the pier at Fiddlehead Hut is no longer there, destroyed by winter storms a few years back, the water taxi driver has to drop the hiker on a precarious beach about 300 meters east of the hut.  To actually get to the hut, one has to walk up the road, arc East a few hundred paces and then arc hard west along another old logging road.  It helps to use your GPS since it is a bit of a rabbit warren of old roads through there.  Do keep in mind that there are quite a few cottagers living around the area that prize their privacy, so no cutting across country.

Past the Vomit Vista a bit, the forest becomes a fairly mature growth. This photo is memorable to me because this is the point at which my beloved Canon M5 gave up: I guess profuse sweat does bad things to electronics when it dribbles into the mechanism.

The trail winds down the ridge of the last of the Mahoney Massif, sometimes on the south-east face of the hogback, sometimes on the north-west side.  There is at least one point where you will get a tempting glimpse of Powell Lake and Goat Island through the trees, but you never really get a photo opportunity in that direction. In fact, there are scant opportunities to see out of the deep dark forest at all.  For the hiker that is still hurting from the climb from Inland Lake, I'm happy to say that the vast majority of the trail is down or steeply down.  Just a few up hill grades to rest your knees.

This might be a good place to give photographers a little lesson in hiking in summer with electronics. My first climb from Fiddlehead was on probably the hottest day of the year and the humidity was probably in the nineties.  I also sweat like only an old man can: pouring down my cheeks, dripping off my shirt and a lot of that sweat landing on my new and highly prized Canon M5.  Guess what?  Electronics do not like being inundated in salty water for hours on end.  

I was always a Canon guy and that one incident cured me of my passion. Canon refused to honor the warranty on a 4 month old camera and actually got grouchy when I asked them how their cameras held up in the field when National Geographic artists explored tropical Africa or combat journalists followed a platoon into a fire-fight.  I recognized that the M5 is hardly Nat Geo material, but a camera really should be able to survive the rambling around of a way past-his-prime wannabe explorer with overactive sweat glands.

BTW: my Olympus is far more tolerant of inclement conditions.  It's too bad that Olympus is said to be backing out of camera production within a few years.

On the trail: mountains, lakes, trees and the clouds above (clouds enhanced)

 

Fiddlehead farm: sold on a promise of protection, then sold to the loggers. 

The first time I climbed up the trail out of Fiddlehead was a shady forest, the following year it was a barely there trail with the bare minimum of trees on either side so the hiker could pretend to be in paradise.

In 2019 it was a quaint and inviting boardwalk. In 2020? Not so much.  Nothing quite as ugly as blast rock. It was not even a nice ramp to stumble up.

Fiddlehead Hut.  It's sad that the dock is gone: just a lone concrete pier remains.  Kind of like the two vast and trunkless legs of stone of the hapless Ozymandias.

The only wildlife I managed to catch on my hike in 2020.  He was shy and pretty much all my shots were blurry.

In my heart I would like to be a wildlife photographer.  Unfortunately the wildlife does not like me all that much and I don't have the big-bucks to buy the long lens one needs to really get those wonderful shots.  In 2020 I had a close brush with an endangered species (habitat destruction, don't you know).  The relatively rare weasel, the Fischer, can be found in our boreal coastal forest, but it's a shy little critter and we humans are pretty scary beasts.

In 2020 I was climbing alone up the trail and, as old men are prone to do after drinking pints and pints of water, I had to stop and water some plants on a particularly steep section of trail. As I stood alone, getting busy and pretty much helpless, I spotted a little brown critter galloping up the trail toward me.  I had no idea what it might be, but seeing as how I was standing still and silent, the furry little guy did not notice me until he was within spitting distance.

Once he spotted me, he froze in place, shocked at the stupid old man staring at him.  He scrambled up a tree about ten feet away and continued to stare me down, offended at my incursion upon his territory.  

My reaction was pretty much comedic. Like the excited video game player battling through a zombie hoard, I bobbled the camera, fumbling to find the on button and hoping it would boot up faster than fast.  Yup...by the time I had the camera up and aimed, all I had was an empty tree to shoot.

I never even knew the opportunity I missed until I got home and found an image of my furry observer on the Internet.  The Fischer, a reclusive and at risk forest denizen.  I doubt I will ever get another chance to catch an image of this cute little critter.

In 2020 I had near perfect conditions for photography.  A clear sky with just a little cloud cover for color accent.  I woke up at the horrific hour of 4:30 am and was on the road into Fiddlehead by 5:15.  The sun was just breaking the eastern horizon as I covered the last few miles into Fiddlehead and the light was absolutely stunning.

I caught some amazing shots on my way in and was absolutely pumped to get climbing the trail, getting that early morning light that landscape photographers go sleepless for. I drove in along a new logging road to the point where the SCT cut across the scabrous gravel monstrosity and parked. Then I second guessed myself and backed my 4X4 a little farther off the road just to be sure that I was not going to block other explorers.

I found a soft shoulder and the back end of my Ford dropped two feet suddenly and, despite several valiant attempts I was stuck solid.  More than a little worried about my isolated situation, I hopped out of the truck and realized my axel was well hung-up on a large cedar stump.   

Luckily, this was not the first time I had dumped a truck into a deep hole. Years of working on ranches as a cowhand had taught me how to get yourself out of tight spot. Nothing that three hours of jacking and stacking progressively more rock under the back wheels could not cure.  Just as I was finally sure I was going to drive free, a local cabin owner wandered by. The guy was an engineer and he pointed out to me that I was likely to dump the truck again if even one of the rocks under my tires shifted the wrong way.  The guy saved my biscuits there: with his help shoring up my teetering rock pile, I escaped my predicament just barely.

I bent the bejesus out of a strut on the driver's side rear wheel and my exhaust now has a timber that no other Ford is likely to ever have. 

I lost the light completely.  Hence I really only got one magical image of the Fiddlehead area at sunrise.

 

I'm not likely to ever get that shot again: we all only pass this way once.  Be careful  not to get high centered in life.

 

The north end of Haslam Lake and Fiddlehead beyond at sunrise.

Gorau adnabod , d'adnabod dy hun: The best knowledge is knowledge of oneself