It was a latish start through town before turning off the highway onto a trail. I was following the trail markers but at some point felt like I hadn’t seen one for a while so I pulled out my phone to consult the GPS maps, and indeed I was off the trail. I back-tracked to where I had seen the last trail marker and couldn’t see anything other than going back the way I had already been, despite it differing from the GPS maps. I decided to follow the markers and did find more a bit further along the trail, despite it still differing from the GPS maps. It was a bit unnerving but I figured that as long as I kept seeing the markers, it should turn out well. And it did, as when I came out on a road, the trail I was on met up with the one on the map. I had a bit of dirt road walking and another man in a pick-up stopped to say hello and to let me know that I could stop in at his golf course to use the toilet and fill up my water if I wanted to since it was a bit further down the road on the trail.

I wasn’t sure I was going to, but when I got there, I thought, why not. A woman was outside painting a doorframe and I unfortunately made her jump when I came up and said hello. We ended up sitting down at one of the outdoor tables and chatting for a bit. She was telling me that she worked very hard all winter because their place is a stop for snowmobilers and that since covid, the rules changed so that they can’t only serve drinks, but also have to serve food and so she’s been run off her feet buying, making and serving food all winter. It also sounded like she couldn’t find anyone to hire to help, given the labor shortage. She also explained to me about how the salmon fishing in the rivers is a lottery and even if you get picked, you have to select the spot and date that you’ll fish. Some parts of the Causapscal river are only accessible with a guide even then. I eventually asked about using the toilet and she pointed it out to me through the door while explaining that she wouldn’t come in to show me since she has covid! She seemed to think that because it had been 4 days since she tested positive, that she wasn’t contagious any more! I did have to go quite badly at this point, so I masked up and hoped for the best. I was also glad that our table was quite large and that we had been over 2 meters apart. After that, I was on my way again pretty quickly. The road comes to the Causapscal river and turns into a trail along it’s bank.

It was up and down, eroded in places and overgrown so very slow going. I passed a very decomposed moose carcass at one point and noticed it because of the smell and because there were a bunch of butterflies sitting on it. I eventually had a lunch break with a very quick swim (water wasn’t any warmer here) before slogging on. My ankles and feet were hurting and I also somehow got a splinter in my sock that I had to stop to remove. I made it to the abri after what felt like forever. I had booked a ground campsite, but I couldn’t really see where to set up the tent, only the abri and one tent platform. I set up the tent on the platform since no one else was there and figured it would be unlikely that anyone else would show up. The campsite is about 100m from a parking lot for an area to observe salmon jumping up a waterfall. There was a long staircase down to the viewing area for the waterfall and I just couldn’t fathom doing the stairs. I had been looking for salmon as I walked along the river, but hadn’t seen any. No one else did show up and since there didn’t seem to be any mosquitoes in the abri, I decided to sleep there and took down my tent once it had dried out as it had been damp from some condensation when I packed it up in the morning.