Waterfall in Vallee Bras du Nord (and a million bugs)

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Hiking with a million of your favorite bug friends.....

For our last weekend in Saint Raymond, we decided we should go visit Vallee Bras du Nord. It is a recreation area near Saint Raymond that is very popular and we hadn't had a chance to visit yet. There was supposed to be a very nice waterfall to hike to. It was a 3 km hike each way. It was a nice temperature day for hiking. Sunny but not too hot. Unfortunately there were millions and millions of bugs. Mostly mosquitos, but also a good share of black flies. Poor Paul and Marc were so covered in bites by the end of the day that I got them an Aveeno Oatmeal bath to soak in that night, and covered them with calamine lotion.

Other than the bugs, the trail in to the falls was a beautiful hike through the bush, along the river and across a couple of creeks. You start out the trail by crossing the Bras du Nord river on a VERY narrow suspension bridge. If you don't like suspension bridges, you certainly wouldn't want to go on this one. it was just 2 planks wide and rather tippy. I love suspension bridges and even I had to hang on with both hands. It is a popular mountain biking area and people even carried their bikes across the bridge. Not sure I could have managed that.

At one point we came upon a "spoon tree", where people had all attached their silver spoons to it. The boys were quite facinated. The waterfall was very beautiful. You could get right up close. We ate our lunch there. The spray helped keep the bugs at bay. There were several young people swimming at the base of the falls. The water was very cold.

Marc was pretty tired by the time we started the 3 km return trip, but he managed to walk more than half of it. Claude had to carry him at the end. Once we arrived back at the car, the bugs were even worse. We opened the doors and scrambled in as fast as possible so the car didn't fill with bugs. we pitied the poor people trying to re-attache their bikes to their cars as they battled the bugs. the boys both had a nap on the way back to town. It was a good way to spend our last Saturday in the area. Glad we don't have that many bugs back home.

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