larlet-fr-david/david/blog/2018/into-the-good/index.md

title: Into the Good slug: into-the-good date: 2018-05-18 chapo: At last, Spring is here! No more snow! lang: en

Résumé en français

Des fois ça fait vraiment du bien de ne plus avoir à se battre contre les éléments. Prendre le temps d’apprécier ces moments.

Yet another I-spend-time-in-the-forest summary. No more snow. At all. I was afraid of two black beasts though:

1. Black bears should have come out of their caves by that time, I did not see any footprint nor any particular damages on trees. I still hang my food though.
2. Black flies were still absent. You have to know that you cannot beat them, they bite you! I learned that the hard way last year so now the end of May + entire June month are *black*listed (ah!).

When the two dangers you can face are absent you feel definitely relieved but even better no more snow means easy access to water, fire starting becomes a matter of seconds and you do not have to rush to build your shelter, yay!

Earn or learn

• earn: I am back at being able to accurately evaluate time given distance left during the hiking part.
• learn: burning my toilet paper when there was snow all around was clever, still doing it close to dry birch bark was incredibly silly. Next time I bring my trowel.
• earn: I wasn’t sure if it was a hiking, fishing or bushcrafting trip and thus a bit afraid to try to do all these badly. In the end it was fun to alternate between these activities.
• learn: fishing is a matter of timing, at 5am I was able to hear fishes jumping in the lake but too lazy to get up by 1°C, later in the day there was no activity anymore so… empty stomach :-).
• earn: I found the perfect spot, a rather big lake with no close human activity and a hiking trail close by. Lots of animals and resources. So happy!
• learn: I took the bus to go and get back from the starting point, it was cheaper but in the end it doubled the time and I ended up more tired than when I drive (I am heavily subject to transports’ sickness). Maybe a compromise would be to be dropped by car at some point and then reach the bus station after a few days to come back home.
• earn: waiting for the bus a few hours (you don’t want to miss the unique bus of the day) allowed me to discover a new place to rest/eat and discuss with local people. Oh, and a route for bikepacking!

Overall, it was good (hence the title) and I even found a place to go with my son this summer, hopefully not infested by mosquitoes. Double happiness.