August 16, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Opting for an easy hike this morning, we chose the South Old Woman River Trail, rated 4.4 and easy. My hip was sore from the last few days hiking, so easy for an hour and a half sounded good. The hike starts across 17 from the campground, so we walked from the campsite.
The South Old Woman River flows out of Rabbit Blanket Lake, under 17, the Trans-Canada Highway. I was anxious to see it. Darkness took over as we entered the forest. Trees sent roots everywhere, across the path, over rocks and into pools of water. Frogs and chipmunks greeted us at every turn. When we didn’t see them, we saw where Squirrels or chipmunks had eaten, leaving shells from seeds covering the path or tree stumps.
There were holes all over the place, leading to where I don’t know, but I was cautious stepping between roots where my foot might go through to God knows where. Who lived in all those holes? Chipmunks? Squirrels? Some were big, and stepping around them made a hollow sound. Were there underground tunnels? Several were huge, where bears might sleep. I decided this was a forest where gnomes might live.
The river is gorgeous, whether you are a fisherman or not. It is tea-stained so I couldn’t see any fish, but it is cold water, and I know they are there, because the sign said this was great brook trout fishing. It was so hard to step between all these roots and still get a look at the stream. Make a bad step into a gnome’s hole and you might sink to your hip.
We crossed the stream several times, but one was rather threatening. Huge boulders with flat tops led across the rushing river, but first we had to sit on our buts and slide our foot to a sharp-angled rock and then climb up the the first flat boulder. A mistake there and it’s trouble, especially for people in their late 70’s.
The trail makes a lollipop loop at the top so we can see a beautiful waterfall plunging into a big pool below. I was picking my spots to fish….if I could get to them. It was tough conditions to fish, but that might mean there were lots of wily Brook Trout.
At the end of the lollipop loop, we stepped cautiously back toward our origin. I took pictures of plants and flowers on “PictureThis” app, to determine what they were, but I had no cell service – another reason to think there were gnomes here. I love the app, because it identifies the plant and tells you if it is edible or medicinal or just pretty, or you want to plant in your yard. Some were poisonous to people and pets, but then I have never seen a Labrador retriever eat red berries or mushrooms.
I was soaked in sweat when we got back from this easy hike rated 4.4, but right off the bat, I would rate it a 5.0, moderate. It is so unique and travels next to a gorgeous trout stream that is difficult or impossible to fish, which just piques the imagination. And then there are the gnomes living in those holes, a rushing stream underground that you can’t see, but only hear, and trees growing right on top of giant boulders.
After a shower and lunch, we drove 33 miles to Wawa, one, to see this beautiful country of one gorgeous lake after another, and beautiful, rushing rivers feeding into Lake Superior. The other was we needed propane, and to fill up with gas.
We stopped at the mouth of the Old Woman River where Kelly caught two beautiful steelhead 12 years ago. People were sitting on the beach eating lunch and enjoying the scenery. I remember walking upstream past Kelly, across a little peninsula and seeing tracks and scat that made me realize we were not in Kansas any more. I made a quick retreat back, where Kelly was trying to protect his two fish from ravens trying to steal them.
I peered around the corner to see the rivers. It wasn’t rushing so hard, but giant trees were strewn across sandbars just to let you know how powerful this river can be.
We came to Wawa, which is more like an outpost on the edge of a frontier. Businesses had come and gone, yet the town of 2,000 pushes on. Carvings of giant Canada Geese are the trademark of the town. This is a place to stock up and fuel up before heading out into the wild to fish, hunt, photograph or explore. It is nice to know there still are such places, making me wish I was younger.
The only propane refill place in town is not open on weekends. With all these campers and cabins, I can’t believe we couldn’t find propane on a Saturday. We have another tank, so it isn’t urgent, so we’ll come back next week. We drove through town to find Silver Falls on the Michipicoten River. We continued up a wide, well-maintained gravel road to find Long Beach. We didn’t go down, but we could see people swimming and having a big time on a cool 68 degree day.
Back at camp we opened a bottle of wine, built a fire and cooked hamburgers over it. Maybe tomorrow maybe we’ll go see the pictographs.
New trick I discovered for writing the blog. All HEIC pictures from iPhone have to be converted to JPEG before I can upload them to WordPress. A video, (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=what+is+the+best+way+to+convert+HEIC+pictures+in+bulk+to+JPEGs&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f315e512,vid:WQcYYPJ8NFo,st:64) told me to go to Photoshop, File, Scripts, Image processor. Then select the folder where you want the pictures, check save to same folder, choose the quality you want and the format – JPEG, push Run. The second time is much faster since the same settings come up. Just change the folder. Saves a LOT of time.