First day at Cook's Lake

Tuesday July 31st, 2007

This morning I overslept and nearly missed breakfast, which was scheduled for 8:30 am, so I was forced to take an abbreviated shower, dash over to the green house for a quick bowl of cereal, and then head back to the yellow house to gather my gear for the day. We were told that it could get pretty wet and muddy out at Cook’s Lake, so I grabbed my Wellies, and threw them in the back of the van. The drive to Cook’s Lake on average, takes about an hour, over occasionally bumpy, hilly roads, the impact of which is felt the most when riding in the very rear of the van. This morning seemed especially warm, and I made the mistake of sitting in the very rear of the van, where a cool breeze can rarely be found.
The way into Cook’s Lake is by walking down a well worn single track dirt road, about a half mile in length, covered in some stretches by patches of soupy mud and water. Chris is able to drive his Chevy pickup truck over the road, but the van would have great difficulty going over such rough terrain, so it is left parked at the main road. As we walk up the road, Christina stops and points out signs of animals - paw prints in the mud, or signs of scat recently left in the roadway.

Roughly a half mile up the dirt road is a mesh screen tent, which will serve as our base of operations for the next two weeks whenever we come out to Cook’s Lake. It is both a means of getting some needed shade during the heat of the day, and also acts as a barrier to the insect population that is constantly swarming about.
The first order of business is a walk out to Cook’s Lake proper, which is about a mile further away, first down the existing dirt road, and then down a single track trail through the woods. As we left the tent site, and headed up the road, Lycos alerted Chris that there was something in the stand of trees just on the crest of the hill we were walking up. About 30 feet up in one of the trees was a juvenile porcupine, called a porcupet - our first mammal sighting at Cook’s Lake. We continued on to the lake, looked around for a bit, and then took a different path back to the tent site. After lunch we began to assemble the 100 Longworth traps that we would be using over the course of the next two weeks. Each trap was filled with some grass, a little cracked corn, and a bit of apple – bedding, food, and a source of water, for anything that might get caught in the trap. We were divided into teams of two – John and I were assigned row “C” – given 20 traps and sent out to place 2 traps every 10 meters in an area of scrub trees. By the time everyone was through laying out their traps, it was nearly 5:00 pm, and so we walked back out to the main road, boarded the van, and headed back to Cherry Hill.
The evening was spent going over the photos taken during the day, eating popcorn, and playing chess with Eric.