This is a slideshow of our long run yesterday (thanks to Derrick and Mac). Slide Lake Loop in Frontenac Park is 30ish km of amazing trail running. It’s one of my favourite runs ever, despite the fact it invariably destroys me by the end. Flagpole Hill and Devil’s Gorge are my top two spots in the park, but because the loop is so big and there aren’t ‘escape’ options, I don’t see them very often. Yesterday the conditions were very good, unlike in the summer when the trail gets grown over with grasses that hide rocks and tangle around your ankles, and the deer flies are bad. Aside from some muddy spots, the biggest obstacles yesterday were the dozens of blowdowns from the big storm last week. The trail is all single-track, mostly very gnarly, and constantly rolls up and down, with a lot of steep ridges through gorges. It's a full-body workout.
The 'official' Slide Lake Loop uses Cedar Lake Loop as its western side, but we always come back along the south-eastern Big Salmon trail instead (from the junction near campsite 4).
Surprisingly we didn't see any deer, just a lot of hawks, one live beaver and a dead one. The dead one looked like fresh kill, so maybe we briefly scared away whatever was feeding on it. Too bad, it would have been neat to see the coyotes or whatever it was.
