We started out the week with Rock Climbing, followed by a swim and just hanging out at a beach on the Ausable River.
The next day, we hiked up Pitchoff Mountain (elevation 3600 ft). It was a perfect day, warm and sunny. We spent a lot of time on the big, open plateau, exploring the rocks and crevasses and just enjoying the day. As we were descending towards the car, the sky darkened and a thunderstorm came rolling through, dumping much rain on our heads.
On the 4th day, we headed for Cranberry Lake to do 2 days and nights out on the lake by canoe. The sky was very overcast and threatening and even dropped some rain on us as we paddled south on the lake. The short showers were separated by splashes of sunshine which rewarded us with a beautiful rainbow over the lake and Bear Mountain. We had to search for a campsite. The "first choice" sites were already taken, but as we paddled around the back side of Joe Indian Island, we found a good site that had enough room for us and our gear. We set up the tents and a large covered/sheltered kitchen area since it still looked as though it was going to rain on us some more and the wind was blowing pretty good down the lake.
The next day was beautiful and we ate a good breakfast and headed west on the lake towards Wanakena. Harry offered to buy ice cream at the general store when we got there but the kids were having too much fun and we didn't get all the way to the small town. the wind was blowing in our faces as we paddled to the west, making it a little difficult to move forward. However, we got lucky and it was still blowing in the same direction on the way back so we put up a sail and sailed all the way back to camp. After dinner we watched the sunset and the moon rise and had a nice campfire before retiring to bed. the next morning, as we were packing up, a duck came into camp to check us out. Later we found out that there was a whole family of ducks waiting down by the canoes. We paddled back to the boat launch and were home about 4 hours later.
