Four Days in the Wilderness

Having found myself stressed by big-city living over the past several months, I recently took a small vacation to get out of the city. For the first time in my life, I went backpacking. My brother came up to visit for a week, and we spent four days in Algonquin Provincial Park, walking the Western Highlands Route.

One of the most stressful aspects of going backpacking? Buying and renting equipment. Yes, if one is an experienced and frequent backpacker, one is less likely to require renting and buying equipment. However, with my brother flying in, and with me being the least experienced, we had a lot of this to do. We rented from two different places, since the first place we went was out of tents, backpacks, and sleeping pads, but luckily the second place was right across the street. We did a lot of dodging traffic and jaywalking that day.

We had everything planned, we were going to get up early and leave the next morning after picking up the rental car for the drive north, but realized that night (before our departure) that the tent we'd been given had no poles. Yes, the tent was missing poles. How that happened... shrug. However, we thankfully discovered it before we left, and therefore did have a tent to sleep in for three nights.

Got lost on our way north, in part due to bad directions (at a Shoppers, an employee suggested we take King's Way to Highway 11, which was the continuation north of Yonge St. Found out when we got there that really, Yonge St. turns into Highway ONE. Sigh).

Anyway, we did make it to the park on time, thanks to some speedy driving and Google's overestimation of the time it takes to get there. We started out that evening, hiking for just under two hours before reaching our first camp, next "door" to some very nice, helpful campers. We camped right in front of a pretty lake, Maple Leaf, it was called, and had our first freeze-dried (my first ever) dinner. Beef stroganoff. Not my favorite, but still edible. I learned the bear-bagging process that night, which involved lots of wandering around and staring at trees, and then some good (and bad) rope-throwing. My main tasks seemed to be to throw accurately when my brother got tired, and to tug on the rope once we got the food hooked onto it. We also discovered the mosquitoes that day. Which turned out to be a key theme and motivating factor throughout our hike.

Day Two involved a pretty early wake-up time, but a late start, given trouble finding moving water to zap with UV rays. After packing everything up and doing some waiting, I heard a ferocious barking across the lake, and then my brother's voice asking politely, if somewhat hesitantly, if he could use the water the dog's owners were using. They happily agreed, as far as I could tell, and I spent some more time waiting around. We hiked like we were running away from Sasquatch the next day, and without stopping for lunch, made it to our next campsite in half a day, just after lunch time. We spent that afternoon hanging around down by the next lake (Maggie, I think), and wading in it, and watching leeches and loons and frogs, and swatting at horse flies. We must have had a whole section of the lakeside camping grounds to ourselves - never heard or saw anyone. That night, we were treated to a chorus of frog song, which I like less than cricket noises. We heard the most amazing bird-calls, but couldn't identify it - one sounded almost like a scream, while another sounded like a high-pitched chuckle.

We got up rather late that morning, having figured we had time to spare, given our early arrival at this campsite. Walked another half-day's hike up and down and up and down hills, but that day we did stop for lunch. Thank goodness. We spent a relaxing hour by yet another lake, watching loons and butterflies this time, and not wading. Followed a canoe portage out of the campsite, and continued on our way. I think this is the day we started seeing moose tracks, although we never saw the moose, which was slightly disappointing (or more than slightly, if you ask my brother). Our third campsite had two levels, though we just used the first one - it was high above the lake (Ramona), so we could see over the water. Saw a loon fly back and forth, fish in the water, and more frogs (and a tadpole-frog!). Endured more mosquitoes and horse flies, and had the most trouble ever trying to find appropriate trees to use to hang the food. We ended up, after much frustration, tramping around in decaying and mossy leaves, clambering up onto and over a fallen tree, and getting the rope caught on the rough bark, before finally getting the bag high enough. We should have had a hilarious picture of my brother doing a poor imitation of a bear under the bag, but had forgotten the camera. Next morning, when we'd planned to take it, events intervened.

I woke up around 5:45 in the morning because the sky was just light, and I heard a loud, booming noise. And then it came again. And I woke my brother up, asking, Did you hear that? He stared at me, uncomprehending, before he heard it, too. I asked the obvious, Was that thunder? And he agreed. So I asked, Should we get going? And we both leaped up (or some variation on the theme) and started running around, trying to get all our stuff out of the tent and the tent rolled up and the food down and our bags packed and rain gear on... we made it about halfway through all our preparations (not including breakfast) before the sky opened. We spent the first half of that morning's hike walking in the rain, and the whole morning trudging through mud and muck. I almost preferred the first part of the morning to the second, because the mosquitoes came back (I guess that implies they left us alone, which they never did) swarmed with a vengeance. Horrid things. We had our rain gear on, so the only things they could reach were faces, necks, and hands... when we finally, finally, reached the last information sign that informed us we had about ten minutes walk to the car, we picked up the pace and practically ran to get away from them. Not that it helped.

We survived, and had fun, and those are the important things, although, in addition to looking like a pincushion or a person with a really bad rash, I busted my knee. Found out about that a day after we got back, trying to get ready to go out for what appeared to be a fun evening (I didn't get to go, because the walking thing wasn't happening). We learned a few things about backpacking, for instance: avoiding mosquito season is a really good idea. Also, I have never appreciated a shower as much as I did the evening we got back.