I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with nature. I love nature, but I hate bugs. Which is why fall is easily my favourite time of year. You can enjoy all the beauty and experiences nature has to offer, minus the bug bites.

In October me and two of my friends, Jakob and Cam, went to Gatineau Park to visit the Lusk Caves. We started off early in the morning and headed out to Algonquin College to pick up some cameras so we could document the trip. From the College, we drove for about 40 minutes to Gatineau Park where we found a spot to park the car. It was about a 13 kilometer round-trip to hike to the caves. It was pretty cold that day from what I remember, but I still think it was the perfect time of year to go. It was the peak season of fall and all around us the woods were full of golden, crunchy leaves. If we stopped walking and listened for a minute, we could hear the sound of birds chirping, rustling leaves, and the sounds of other unknown animals coming from the woods.

The trip took us about 7 or 8 hours total. Total hiking time probably wasn’t more than 4 hours, but we stopped quite a bit to take photos, explore our surroundings, and have snacks. The water in the cave was freezing, your feet would get numb after only a couple seconds of being in it, the water level was also quite high. I had read before our trip that the water can be so low in the caves that it’s only a little stream, however, when we were there it was at least two feet. We all had an amazing trip and it’s really motivated me to try and get out into nature more once the snow melts. I definitely would love to make another trip back to the caves this summer so I could go swimming in the cave and the surrounding lakes.