A couple of weekends ago, I did a star party in Carp on the Friday night and the seeing was pretty good. There was a second one on Saturday set for Luskville with the AstroPontiac initiative (I’m on the board), and since Jacob wanted to go, we decided to make it a small family outing. We headed out early, grabbed some subs and drinks, and got to the Luskville site around 5:30.

One of the nice parts about the site is that it is right next to the Luskville Falls hiking trail. We didn’t have the time or the light to do a full hike, but we wanted to go up the quarter kilometre or so to get to the actual falls. We had water, and hiking poles, just in case, but didn’t think we would need them. We ended up loaning them to Jacob though to try out and he made out pretty well. Some of the rocks on the first stretch are still pretty big for his little legs, so we found that for stability and movement, one pole + one parental arm was the best balance.

When you start the trail, you go down some big steps to get to the start of the trail, and I think Jacob liked those the best.

I had hoped for a bit more interesting light in the treetops, but it wasn’t cooperating.

We started up the rocks next to the little creek, and that’s when we ended up testing the one parental arm + one pole technique for Jacob, as one parental arm wasn’t enough.

I love the first glimpse of the falls as you go up, just peeking through the trees.

Fortunately, it hadn’t been too wet lately so the falls were relatively tame today.

As twilight was falling, we headed back, maybe 10 minutes to the parking lot. Short hike. Then we grabbed the subs, and set up on a picnic table. I don’t think I have ever had a late afternoon / early twilight picnic like that before, and it was incredible. It was deathly quiet, even though there were other people in the small park area. You could hear the sound of the falls a short distance away. And as we sat there, leaves were falling from the trees around us. One here, one there. Spiralling downward. It was awesome. Almost meditative in a way.

Which made up for the fact that the star party was a complete bust (Two star parties back to back). Clouds rolled in and never left. But well worth the trip, even for a basic hike.