Robertson Lake Cliffs, September 2002
         

It was Labour Day and I wanted to *do* something. Specifically, I wanted to go up on the Robertson Lake Cliffs, which are east of Goulais Bay on Lake Superior. All of my siblings were home, and usually they are game for all sorts of adventures. Unfortunately, there were too many agendas and complicating factors - Markus wanted to visit five geocaches, Matthias didn't, my car's exhaust system was missing the header pipe so couldn't be used, Markus wouldn't offer his car if we wouldn't do all that he wanted, Matthias didn't offer his car at all, Marlene's car's suspension was in need of some attention and could only take two people - but if she and I went, Markus and Matthias were unwilling not to come... Finally, my mother offered her car, but only if Marlene drove (apparently, I am a bad driver. This is based on the fact that I ditched the truck before I got a driver's licence 15 years ago). Maybe if Matthias had written a computer program to factor in everyone's preferences, we would have been on the road before 10:00...
Marlene used to spend a lot of time on the Robertson Lake Cliffs - for two summers, she worked on the peregrine falcon project (whose goal was to re-establish breeding pairs east of Superior) there. She used to dash up the very steep trail (our ascent rate: 60feet per minute for quite some time) every day.
About halfway up, you hit the Voyageur Trail, and from there on the trail is well-blazed and maintained (but still very steep). We got to the first lookout, and Matthias decided to wait for us while we continued on, he wanted a break. Markus, Marlene and I scurried on to the next lookout, where we met a very interesting man who owns property in the area.
We didn't stay to chat for long, though, since we wanted to follow the trail all the way to the once-location of the furthest away hack box for the peregrines. The three other boxes had been helicoptered out at the conclusion of the project, but this one was in too difficult a location to get a sling under, so it had been left behind.
Apparently, the location was not too difficult for somebody to kick the box over the edge, though - we could see the remains of it shattered far below. The guy we had met at the second lookout supposed that it was one of the folks who resent the peregrines - apparently, there are those who hate the predatory birds.
Before going back down, Markus and I found the "Cardio Special" geocache very near the second lookout. Shortly after I signed the log book and started hiking down again, a massive rainstorm hit, and by the time we got back to the car (where Matthias was waiting), we were soaked. Markus and I still wanted to do a little bit more geocaching, and Markus convinced the others to let us try for two which are very close to the road in Goulais Bay.
The first one of these that we found, "Kastle", was in an uninspiring location which required getting very wet (and crossing a stream a dozen times), but we did find it. The second was at the base of some cliffs, though the heavy cloud cover confused the GPS and it took us a while to get this one. Matthias and Marlene were now tired of waiting for us, and we all went home...