August 5, 2016 “Marco?” I called out into the blanket of fog. “Marco?” I couldn’t see anyone around me. All I could see was a blanket of fog and the crest of the hill in front of me. “Marcooooo?” “Where are you Marco?” I asked one last time, with a hint of desperation in my voice. I didn’t have a map, or a compass. What if I got lost out here? “Over here Polo!” I heard Ryan call back. Phew, we weren’t as separated as I had thought. Turns out that Ryan had an eye on me the whole time. He was just taking a bearing. What is a bearing you ask? Where the heck were we, surrounded in fog and trying to find our way with a compass? Well, let me tell you where we were. But first, let me tell you a bit of the back story.
Ryan and I had been planning on going to Newfoundland to do the Long Range Traverse in Gros Morne National Park for a few months. The trail is famous for being difficult to follow because it is a route - not a marked trail, the vegetation is difficult to get around (tuckamore tangles), there are moose and bear sightings on the trail, and the bugs will eat you alive. So why would we even try to attempt this difficult trail? Well it was rated on National Geographic’s top 20 hikes. Most of the hikes are around the world, or not close to where we are, but this one is basically in our backyard. The views look beautiful, and who doesn’t love a good challenge every now and then
We had planned out what gear we needed, and what dates we could get over to the Rock of Canada. We had to reserve our spot on the Long Range Traverse before we could leave - our original date had been all booked up so we ended up leaving a few days later. We had our car packed and ready to go for three different types of vacations: front country camping (also called car camping), back country camping and city type vacation. Our big plan was to drive up to the ferry in North Sydney, NS and take the ferry across to Port aux Basque, NL to begin our journey. The drive up to the national park takes around 4 hours from the ferry and until you get close to the park there isn’t too much to see. You’re driving in the interior for the majority of the way - be careful of the moose and deer if you aren’t used to them! Once you get close to the park you’ll know by the changing scenery. The landscape goes from smooth rolling fields to small hills which make way for increasingly bigger hills. Eventually you’ll find yourself in a place that you could easily confuse for a vast majority of other countries. On our trip we heard the terrain compared to parts of Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Greenland. The fjord like ponds (they used to be fjords, but now because the glacier is gone, they are technically ponds I believe). Even if you aren’t planning on doing any back country backpacking a trip to the park is an enjoyable one.
We stayed in Shallow Bay which is at the far end of the park. We were going front country camping. This entailed sleeping next to the car, hence the car camping, and we were able to build fires each night and we didn’t have to pack up our tent. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get around to hiking too many of the trails because our days were spent getting ready for the back country trail. One day we realized that we really should treat our back country tent again just to make sure we stay dry. The last thing you want to do is have your tent leak on you. If you are in the park, the closest outdoors or hiking stores are in Corner Brook or in the Marble Mountain lodge area. These are easily around 40-60 minutes away. We also had to attend an orientation session for the back country trail.
Many of the blogs that we read warned us of a semi-difficult navigation test that we would need to pass before we would be let on the trail. The reasoning behind this is that the Long Range Traverse is not a marked trail. It isn’t a trail at all - it is a route. The route can change with the growing and changing vegetation (a.k.a. tuckamore), and how muddy a particular section of the route is. I was nervous, to say the least, when we sat down to start our orientation. We had two other groups sit down with us for our orientation session. There were 6 of us in total. One couple were from BC/Yukon and seemed to have a lot of hiking under their belt already. The other couple were from Switzerland and they, likewise, seemed to have a lot of hiking under their belts. Ryan has been on his fair share of overnight trips, which made me the only under experienced backpacker in the group. I tried to listen to everything that was being said in the orientation session so that I would be able to survive outdoors, and actually enjoy my time outside.
The orientation session was just that - an orientation session. Gone are the days where you would be given a map and compass and asked to navigate. The woman at the visitor’s centre said “if you are doing this trail, you really should know how to navigate by now”. She led us through the current trail conditions and told us what to do if we see any aggressive wild life. If there is a moose that is huffing and puffing, and stomping its feet, you start running around trees or large boulders until you shake it off. That sent me shaking in my boots a bit; I'm pretty sure that a moose can easily outrun me. I wasn't eager to find out if my hypothesis was correct or not. If you see a bear and it’s being aggressive you start backing off, never turning your back to it. If you see a bear that isn’t being aggressive it thinks you are dinner - it’s hungry. Then you need to start running at the bear and making a lot of noise, essentially be aggressive. To top off the whole orientation session we were warned about the bugs. She stressed how many black flies and mosquito there would be. She wasn’t lying, or overemphasizing the amount of bugs there would be.
With the orientation session under way we set off to make our final adjustments to our packs and get some more bug spray before we headed off. In the morning we had to park at a camping ground parking lot; there had been smash-and-grab break-ins to the cars that were parked at Gros Morne parking lot overnight. We took at taxi to Western Brook Pond and met up with all of our hiking partners.
We took a speed boat taxi service which took 20 minutes to get to the trail head for the Long Range Traverse. “Toss me your packs and I’ll haul them off the boat and set them on the dock here.” Ryan called out. It was much easier to get off the boat without the pack on, besides I’ll take all the help I can get - I’m about to spend a few days constantly carrying everything on my back. “Any last takers to take the easy way out?” The man on the boat called out.
Everyone laughed, some more nervously than others, but everyone had shook their heads no. The boat turned around and started to set off; we watched our last easy way off the trail drive away. With a quick snap of a picture we turned around and started to follow what seemed like a trail. “Um, Ryan?” “Yeah?” “Where did the trail go?” I asked while trying to avoid the small tuckamore trees. “I think we’re going in the right direction. I mean that’s our ultimate goal.” He said while pointing at the tallest section of rock that we could see, a long way off. We were still a long way off. “Oh, shoot!” “What?” “Errr...my pants ripped.” I said sheepishly while pointing to the area on the back of my leg where my pants had a small hole in them. Great, one hour into our 4 day trek and I already had a rip in my clothes. Well, I had other pairs of pants in the car. I just needed to get to the car - on the other side of the trail. “Over here! I found the trail!” one of our hiking companions shout. Thank god - no more tuckamore.
The rest of the day goes by without too much difficulty; we continued to push onward until we got to what looked like a rock cliff. We started the trail up - including a lot of clambering. We were essentially climbing higher than the CN Tower on our first day. Everyone was really nice and helping me up some of the more difficult sections. There were times where we all had to take our packs off and climb up and then throw the packs up. With a lot of teamwork and patience, I had to take frequent breaks in order to make the push up, we sat down for lunch at the top of the fjord. The view was breathtaking and it was well worth the climb up.
We continued on to our first camp site. There are different camp sites along the trail. Each site is equipped with three to four tent pads (the entire trail is marsh land so these were a welcome luxury), a bear box and a thunder box. The bear box is installed to keep animals out of your food. There are no tall trees and so a bear hang is not possible when you are camping along the LRT. For those of you who don’t know what a thunderbox is, it is a thunderbox is a type of outhouse toilet. There is no structure around the toilet - it is like a free standing toilet in the woods. They smell, but hey, it’s better than your other option!
The first night we pitched our tent and then the rain started. We were lucky to have good weather on our climb up, I can’t imagine doing that in the rain, but we were about to battle three more wet days ahead of us. We cooked in the rain, ate quickly and settled down to sleep. The first day I was so tired that I fell asleep at 6:30pm and slept soundly until the next morning at 8am.
We woke up to rain and the start of our constantly damp shoes. As soon as we packed up our camp the weather cleared up and it was comfortably overcast for the rest of the day. The ground up on the top of the traverse is wet swamp land, so you are constantly going through mud and puddles.
The trail to our next camp site wasn’t difficult and we were able to manage the 8-10 km each day comfortably. There are a great many hills in between one camp site and the next. I was constantly behind everyone else, but they were kind and patient. Ryan never left my side and helped me up some of the more steep steps. The rest of the group would wait for me to catch up, and politely ask if I needed a break. Each day, by lunch time I would be grateful for food and a rest. Our second camp site was by far my favourite. We had a tent pad which overlooked two different ponds, an extra tent pad which was out of the way where we could comfortably sit and play cards with one another, and a sandy beach. Our Swiss companions taught us a game called Ciao-Sept. It was a fun game, a bit like Crazy 8’s, played with a Swiss deck. Soon our stomachs started to growl, and we headed down to our private beach to eat dinner. It was nice to sit and enjoy some of the rare sunlight which was shining through the mass of overcast clouds.
“I’m bored.” One of our companions started to complain. Ryan drew a tic-tac-toe grid in the ground. A smile light up our companion’s face. Then came the best idea we’ve had all day: “How about a game of bocci?” Ryan asked. Our companion jumped up from where he was making a sand volcano. “Yeah!” He cried out while starting to look for different coloured rocks. The women in the group laughed softly at his enthusiasm.
Soon we had a group of different coloured rocks, and we were organized into different teams. We had a referee for judging the distances of throws, and to determine who was throwing next. After several games, the sun started to set and we climbed into our sleeping bags for the night. The next day started with rain, because it is always raining up on the LRT. We started off to our third campsite, and our last night on the trail. There were a few times when the fog rolled in thick, and we had to wait several seconds before we could see anything through the misty rolling wind. There was one time where we turned on the GPS, just to make sure we were where we thought we were. We weren’t looking for a helicopter tour of the LRT, although imagine the views! With one last push we ended up at our last camp site.
This last camp site was by far the buggiest campsite that we had been to throughout our journey. “The tent is up! Get in! Get in!” I yelled out to Ryan. “Ahhhhh!” Ryan was busy swatting black flies which were swarming him. “Ah, you know, I think I will.” He said while he practically dived through the bug netting into the tent. All of our stuff was outside the tent still waiting to be set up: sleeping pads, sleeping bags, the rain cover for the tent. We needed a momentary break from the onslaught of bugs which were trying to eat us alive. Those bugs can really break down your mental stability on the trail. I don’t know how the animals do it! A small break in the tent is what I needed to go back out and face the swarms of bugs.
Waking up to the sound of rain on the fourth day really helped to push us to finish the trail that day. We had been back and forth with the idea of climbing to the top of Gros Morne mountain on Day 4 and then descend off the mountain on Day 5. By the time that we got to the last camping spot, in time for lunch - wow we were making great time! - we decided that we wanted off the trail. It sucks to have constantly wet feet for four days, and we were both getting tired of dehydrated food and sleeping on the ground (we had been camping for a week by this point). The fog was getting worse and so we wouldn’t see anything at the top of that mountain anyhow. We decided to push on - it was easy now because the trail was actually marked and manicured. As soon as my feet hit the marked trail I put the burn on and descended down the last of the path. “RYAN! RYAN!” “What?” “Are those cars? I think I see cars!” I exclaimed while running down towards the parking lot. I instantly ran over to a large rock to sit on, benches seemed too awkward to sit on after all of that time on the trail, and proceeded to take off my hiking boots and socks. I vowed that I wouldn’t put my socks or shoes back on for the rest of the trip and I was able to maintain that promise.
All-in-all the trip was amazing. It was my first real multi-overnight backpacking trip, and I believe that everyone should take a trip like this. I learned what my limits where, how to accept when you are defeated (a.k.a. how to live in the black fly swarms), and how to find my own happiness. It really makes you appreciate the little things in life - a warm cup of tea, fresh food, and having shelter over your head. It also helps you to appreciate the outdoors and all of the beauty that comes along with the outdoors.