Great Hike from P7 to King Mountain (8km) (and a bear sighting!)

My mid-week hikes have now, finally, become a looked-forward to part of my week. I'll admit, it's taken me longer this summer to become enthusiastic about fitness. I haven't been rollerblading much, haven't been biking but once, and hiking was an effort.

I blame the long, cold spring (winter was quite mild this year) and the slow, tumultuous start to summer. Talking with different people, you see, I realize that I'm not the only one who got a late start.

But now that I'm back into it, I am really into it. No trying to talk myself out of going, no looking for any excuse to bail.

Yesterday's hike was amazing. Short, but challenging and, yep, I got a good face-to-face with a black bear. Actually, I've had a lot of bear sightings in Gatineau Park. Last year about four or five, and already two this year. It's always mid-week (not weekends), and always around the same time of day (4:30 pm).

This bear sighting was gorgeous, though. I think he/she had been sleeping in the leave or brush, because it was only when we'd stopped to spray ourselves with bug spray that, suddenly, we heard the rustle and up came the bear. He was pretty close (not too close), and the angle he was standing at and looking toward - side-view, looking away from me - I got to appreciate his beauty. A big body, and gorgeous beige snout. Such a photo-worthy shot. Sadly, I didn't have my proper camera, and didn't have time to get my phone camera ready before the bear turned and headed off.

We saw the bear about 30 minutes into our hike. We had just left trail #1 and started onto the winter part of trail #8 (about 1km before hitting Keogan cabin, this trail is to the left). After the bear encounter, we kept going on #8, staying straight where it intersects with #17.

It's a steep, challenging climb, especially as we were all going pretty quickly, but it was great. We came out at the road, turned left and walked to the King Mountain parking lot. Then we went into the loop a little, to the left, then left again at the hard-to-see trail #37.

The whole thing, including  a 25-minute rest at the King Mountain picnic area only took us two hours and twenty-minutes, but left me feeling very tired, and very refreshed.

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