Ministik

It’s been a long time since I’ve walked the trails near Joseph Lake. It was fun rediscoving the place all over again.

I after a long absence, I “rediscovered” a grand loop hike in the southeast section of the Ministik Bird Sanctuary. It’s a route I call the “Mitchell Loop”, named after a cabin tucked in the woods along the way.

The hike today was a thoroughly pleasant outing to find a couple new caches and perform maintenance on a few of my own.

I lived through what turned out to be a very challenging hike through overgrown trails today.

To get to a remote cache today, I walked down familiar trails but then covered ground that I’d only once been near before 10 years ago - and that was in the winter months.

I undertook a grand loop hike in the Ministik today, what I call the Five Meadows Hike. It was a gloriously beautiful day to do it too.

Three of us did a two part hike today, first north of Township Rd 510 and then south to Deadfall Alley

In the past I’d walked on stub trails northeast of Mandy Lake and today I wanted to see if they really were actual trails - spoiler alert - there were.

There are some out of the way trails in the Ministik that start but eventually just peter out into nothing. This is one of them.

I made the trek down the trails of a corner of the Ministik I seldom visit today.

Four of us hiked south from the UofA Access Road gate all the way down Deadfall Alley today.

It’s March and the ice between islands on Ministik Lake can still be walked on. Or can it? Yikes! There’s standing water on a lot of it!

I hiked down the Mandy Lake road, past the old cabin and shelter to hide a geocache today.

I’d waited to make the trek for a while. But the weather promised to be great today and and as it turned out it certainly was.

This was fun and challenging outing. I was anticipating a LOT more bush whacking than I ended up experiencing.

One of my cache containers was the victim of a bored coyote so I hiked in to replace it with a new one today.

I walked the familiar route from the UofA Access Road gate to the unfamiliar boggy shoreline of a large pond in the Ministik.

I’d been on this trail a couple of times before but it’s been a long time since the last visit. It’s named Misasin by fellow geocachings, so I’m going with it. It was fun exploring new sections of it today.

I traveled down the winding road to Mandy Lake today to find two caches. I was with the cache owner when he hid them, so I’m returning to find them fair and square.

I had multiple goals today: to find a challenge cache near Dorward Lake and to capture as many time lapses as I could in the Dorward Lake area.

I made walk over early spring, still somewhat snowy ground to a remote cache today

Four of us crunched through the snow, on trail and off to find geocaches in the area accessible from the Stove Lake trailhead in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary.

I followed the road to Mandy Lake to find one cache and do some maintenance on one of my own

I hiked on a kind of disjointed trail today with a buddy where I have a string of caches hidden.

Hiking to one of my geocache hides to do some maintenance was my excuse to experience a beautiful day in a remote, beautiful place.

I hiked in what was for me a new area in the Ministik today and that’s always fun.

An early spring hike in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary southeast of Edmonton. Will I find some spring to help thaw my winter-frozen brain?

I did a loop hike over what has become very familiar ground today. But even on familar paths, the experience of them is always changing.

For almost a decade a single red folding chair has been stationed at a lookout over Williams Lake in the Ministik Bird Santuary. The landscape is in constant flux around it, but the red chair remains.

I walked along the crusty snow first on familiar trails, then off trail on new ground to get to the south end of Oliver Lake today.

I had to do some maintenance on a cache near Mandy Lake in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary and had great outing walking along the still snowy trails to get to it.

This was a memorable day of geocaching for a few remote caches int he Ministik Bird Sanctuary.

I made the snowy walk to scout out a geocache hide, realized I wasn’t going to be able to get to it, so continued on to visit the Ministik fireplace and Red Chair Lookout.

I had a glorious trudge through (not over) the trails to Dorward Lake today to find two caches.

I met my buddy Hugh and we spent hours walking over crusty lake ice to find geocachings hidden on islands on Oliver Lake in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary

I had an excellent walk over hardened trail snow and lake ice to get to remote cache in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary

A hike to a fairly remote fire tower in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary southeast of Edmonton is brought to life with StoryMapJS, software that combines maps with images and text.

My goal for the day was to find two new caches hidden by Jazzhiker who, like me, came to geocaching via hiking.

This recon hike was made and the blog post written early in my explorations of the Ministik Bird Sanctuary. It’s fun for me to relive the experience these days when the area is well-known to me.