Bon Echo Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada: A wilderness overnight alone
Bon Echo Provincial Park is a scenic and somewhat "wild" park in southern Ontario. Somewhat sandwiched between Toronto and Kingston, it provides a joyous wilderness retreat for those that don't want the added hassle of a road trip up to much larger and farther away Algonquin Provincial Park.
I decided on a spur of the moment to take a 2 hour trip up from Kingston, Ontario to Bon Echo for an overnight at one of the wilderness hike-in campsites. While less than 5 miles from the road, it had the exact wilderness feel that I was looking for. While not prepared gear-wise, I did have my camera and the desire to simply be in the woods. I used heavy, old, and mostly functional gear to simply get the job done. It was simply glorious. Without another soul to see during my entire trip, I played with snapping turtles, swam in a lake, listened to the coyotes howling on the shore across from me, and read a book while the thundering heavens unloaded everything they had on me during the night. |
The distant rock on the far shore are where I saw the coyotes come out at dusk to howl and generally send chills up my spine. I swam of the rocks in the foreground, and lounged for many hours simply watching the approaching storm and listening to the wind. Sometimes simply being in nature is the sole purpose of the trip, and for me, this trip was all about simply being in the woods without rhyme or reason. |