After spending the better part of the day in Picton taking photos at Dentistry From The Heart, I decided to head over to West Lake to see if I could catch the sunset.

I came prepared with all my winter gear, including snowshoes, which I probably didn’t need but they did come in handy given that instead of finding the trail, I decided to bushwhack my way through the dunes. An interesting choice on my part, since the last time I had ventured out on the dunes was on a fat bike and I got my friend and I pretty turned around. However, after that misadventure I spent some time with the map and cleared up all my misconceptions about the geography of the area. As such, I knew that I had to traverse the dunes to the west to find the sunset. Easy peasy.

So, I got suited up and headed off chasing the sun. At this point, it dawned on me that I wasn’t sure exactly just how far I had to go to get to the other side of the sandbar. No worries, if all else failed I was going to have a nice hike. And besides, how far could it be? Not too long after I left, I could hear the waves of Lake Ontario, and I could see a large series of dunes. Almost there. So I took off toward the ridge and climbed to the top, ready to take in the sun and was greeted by a vast, seemingly endless view of sand.

This scene repeated itself a couple of more times before I started to wonder if I was going to make it to the beach on time. But I did clear up one more misconception about the geography. Eventually, I did get to that last dune just in time to catch the sun on the horizon. So I waited until the sun set, I took some photos, then packed up my gear, took in the view one last time… and realized that I had forgotten my flashlight.

One advantage of wearing snowshoes of course is that it’s easy to trace your tracks back to your car in the dark.