Hard to believe how long it's been since we were on a hike in the Gatineau Hills.  Because our youngest son is with us for a week we heeded his urgings and despite the lowering weather threatening more rain, the prospect for a day's adventure was alluring.  So off we went for the pleasant short drive to access the Lauriault Trail, a relatively short, but beautiful hike.

It has been too inexcusably long a time since we were in the Park, enjoying the glories of its many and varied trails.  When our children were young it had become our premier place of outdoor recreation.  There we picnicked, explored vast trail systems, became truly familiar with our natural surroundings, canoed and picked wild strawberries, blueberries, (occasionally bypassing bear scat) raspberries and blackberries in season, bringing back the fruits to make jam to last us through the winter months.

In the winter we snowshoed over transformed terrain, loving the floating sensation as we lifted ourselves downhill through great drifts of fresh-fallen snow - on occasion coming almost head-to-head with deer, startled at our presence.

Our biologist son delights in seeking out the presence of life so minuscule we would never notice without his alerting us, to the activities of insects leaving the symptoms of their passage - leaf minors - on fallen foliage, to tiny, darting book trout in the fresh clear-running streams we passed.

When we completed our circuit, arriving at the lake, we were surprised to discover its height so increased from normal that it was not possible to access the viewing dock, since it was submerged to a depth sufficient to discourage anyone suited out with other than knee-high water-proof boots.