Hiking Algonquin Park: The Highland Trail

                                               The Idea

   A couple of months ago, I started planning a four-day, three-night backcountry solo backpacking trip on the Highland Trail in Algonquin Provincial Park. It was meant to be the logical next level up on my hiking journey which began back in 2017.

   Back in those days I mainly found myself hiking sections of long-distance trails here in southwestern Ontario. It was always a matter of driving a couple of vehicles to the end point of a hike, and then having one of the vehicles drop me off at the beginning. Wives and kids helped me accomplish this for the first couple of years until I found myself even farther away and relying on taxi services.

   Along the way, I found myself soaking up the vlogging efforts of people thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail---a 2200 mile trail running from Georgia to Maine, in the United States. Thru-hiking involves carrying a tent, food, and clothes on your back and hiking several miles a day. You set up camp at the end of the day, sleep, and then do that all over again the next day.

   This intrigued me! 

   I began to search for ways I might experience a little bit of this without being gone for months at a time and found the three backcountry hiking trails in Algonquin---the Western Uplands, the Highland and the Eastern Pines. I chose the Highland Trail as it seemed to present the best choices for the distance I wanted to cover and the actual time I wanted to be on the trail.

                                                 The Plan

I had planned on doing the one big loop!

   After studying the map of the Highland Trail, I booked three separate camping "areas". Unlike most other provincial parks you can camp in, the Algonquin backcountry area does not allow you to pick an actual campsite. Instead, you are able to book a general area where there may be six or seven campsites. At that point it is "first come, first served" and if you arrive at the first site and someone is already there you simply move on to the next site and hope it's available.

   The trail winds its way around three main lakes---Provoking Lake, Harness Lake and Head Lake. There are camping areas at all three lakes and Provoking is large enough that there are actually two areas---Provoking East and West. I booked a site on Provoking East for the first night, Head Lake for the second and then back up to Provoking West for the the third. There is a 19K loop and a 35K loop, (which encompasses most of the 19K loop), and my idea was to hike the full 35K loop.

   The original plan had me driving up to Algonquin the day before (it's a five-hour trip from London) and then spending the night in a nearby motel so that I could get an early start in the morning. It then occurred to me to ask my wife, Doralyn, along and book a room for 5 nights so that she could have some alone time, away from her busy routine. She was happy to oblige! We also have a new kitten we decided to take with us so that we could make sure she wasn't getting into any trouble back at the house. Our older cats also needed the break....

   After the first night in the motel, the plan was for Doralyn to drop me off at the trailhead and then enjoy some peace and quiet and beautiful fall colours while I was off backpacking. She would then pick me up at the trailhead once I was done and we'd spend one more night in the motel before heading home. So that was the plan.

                                What Actually Happened

    We left for Algonquin on Sunday, October 4 and made our way to the Dream Catcher Motel. Marbles, the kitten, did a lot

Marbles, travelling

of mewing on the way but actually handled the long car ride very well. Our room was quite small but very clean and cozy and we spent a quiet night, the three of us.

   Late the following morning, Doralyn and I headed to the trailhead. The Highland Trail is about 25 minutes west of the East Gate of Algonquin Park and we got there quite quickly. It was a beautiful day (it had poured rain on the way up to the park) and after adjusting my gear we headed off. Doralyn decided to hike the first couple of kilometers with me and there was a scenic waterfall about 2K into the hike so we made it our destination. Some pics and a kiss and I was off into the wild!

Ready to hit the trail!

   The Highland Trail very quickly lets you know what it is made of and right off the bat I found myself climbing. Much of the trail involves negotiating around and over rocky outcrops, most of which seem as though they go straight up. At the beginning of each of these climbs, I would take a look at all of the most likely footholds and then start my way up. Occasionally a route which looked fine at the bottom of the hill became problematic part way up and changes would be necessary but no big deal really---the day was sunny and I was excited to finally be on a trail I'd been seeing in vlogs for months now. 

Roots, rocks, trees and leaves!
Pretty representative 
of the terrain.

   The saying "whatever goes up must come down" is so very true and fully applies to this trail. For every hard climb up, eventually you had to go back down again. I found though that the downward scrambling was just as, or even more so, problematic. At any moment there was a fear that gravity might just take over entirely and turn a cautious descent into a

Pine needles and a view!

hellacious freefall. 

   Compounding all of this was the fact that I was carrying a 37 pound pack on my back. On a downhill, you can change your mind about which way you're going but then sometimes your backpack doesn't get the same message and decides to continue on in the direction you were originally headed. This was a huge fear of mine on pretty well all the downhill sections I travelled. As with anything else, of course, you learn to compensate and I continued along without major incident.

Madawaska River falls. One
of the "iconic" Highland views.

   The trail is beautiful! Around pretty well every corner of the trail, there are amazing forest and lake vistas on display. Being October, the colours were amazing and there was still enough greenery left that it wasn't hard to imagine the trail in all its summer glory.

   Very quickly I started running into what, to me, were iconic sights and markers along the way. Constant viewing of other people's vlogs had accustomed me to what I would see on the trail and every time I ran into something familiar I got

Footbridge at the falls.

excited all over again.

   The first major iconic marker I ran into was the sign which indicates whether you turn left to get to Provoking East or go right to head toward Provoking West. I happily turned left and started hiking. 

   Round about here, though, my plans started to change slightly.

Looks reasonably flat.
Wasn't...

   The trail had seen a lot of rain and, on top of being very hilly, was also very waterlogged. This made the hiking just slightly more torturous. Soon after you head for Provoking East, there is a scenic lookout on a side trail. I had seen the view from this lookout in quite a few vlogs and was planning on taking it in myself. The first part of the side trail is downhill and I very gingerly started negotiating the slippery rock and mud. I was tiring by this point and realized that as far as I hiked on this side trail I was also going to have hike back. Finally, I decided that the time and risk involved outweighed the view I might be able to document so I made my way back to the main trail. 

The iconic "warning" sign.

   Eventually, I reached the first camping area, exhausted. Disappointingly, the first campsite was occupied. I continued on and had my first fall---had been walking down a short grassy slope and, with the wetness, my feet slid out from underneath me. I landed on my side, no damage done, but with a more urgent need to

First campsite on 
Provoking East.

reach a site for the night. 

   About another 700 meters along the trail an unoccupied campsite miraculously came into view and I had a home for the night! I was almost giddy in my happiness! By this time, it was about 5:30 and I had been on the trail for the better part of 5 hours. It was then I had a bit of a disconnect---it had taken me almost five hours to travel about 5 and a half kilometers and a clear understanding of this equation and how it might affect the rest of my hike did not even enter my head. I had reached camp and I was happy!

Peaceful.

   I checked out the campsite, set up camp, found the privy, and had a bite to eat. I tried to start a campfire but was working with a small amount of wet wood and kindling. It was getting dark by now so I retreated to my tent for the evening. Here is where the disconnect continued, in my head. It had just taken me around five hours to travel 5K. I knew that the next day I had about 15K to go to my next booked campsite. The math says about fifteen hours then, doesn't it?? All I

Breaky

really remember thinking as I lay in my tent that night was that I had a long way to go so I should probably get started first thing in the morning.

Typical privy. Great view
though!

   This disconnect remained all the way til I was on the trail the next day, travelling at about the same speed. I was happy to be hiking and not thinking about much else. At one point, though I sat down on a log for a rest and I did the actual and real math in my head. It occurred to me then that I would not be making it to the next site at Head Lake during daylight. It also occurred to me that I might not even make it there til the following day! So, sitting there on the log, I came up

Sunset, first night.

with an alternate plan---I would check with Ontario Parks and see if I could book a closer site. When I spoke with them, they re-routed me to the Algonquin office. There, I got an automated message saying that due to the high volume of calls blah, blah and that I could leave a message but no guarantee on a response that day.

   Not helpful.

   At that point, I referred to a higher power---Doralyn. Knowing that she was very close to the park office, I called her and more or less begged her to actually go to the office and see if she could re-book for me. Which she did! I ended up with a booking at Provoking West, the area I was booked to end up at the following day anyways. My ever-changing plan was now to get to Provoking and just stay at that campsite for two days. This would essentially

So much of this on the trail!

change my original plan to hiking the 19K loop rather than the 35K loop and I was fine with that.

   Getting to the first site on Provoking West involved a rather lengthy side trail with a rather treacherous climb down to the campsite itself. On the way down, I couldn't help but think that there better not already be someone camped there for the night, as this was a definite possibility. Imagine my relief to come upon an unclaimed site! And it was beautiful as well. Right on the lake, with a massive stone backdrop covered in moss. The whole area seemed quite like rainforest and it reminded me very much of the forests in B.C. when I was a kid. Water access was easy so I did

Did a full face-plants here,
stepping over that log.
Landed on my chest, and a 
millisecond later, my 37 lb.
backpack finished the job!

some water filtering, had a bite to eat, hung my food bag (bears!) and settled down for the night.

   I fell asleep pretty quickly to a steady rain but woke up around 2:00 a.m. and checked my phone to see what the time was. As I was looking at my phone, I felt a drop on my face. I checked the walls of the tent thinking perhaps it was condensation. The walls were reasonably dry and I fell asleep again. I awoke again, later on, round about 4:00 and

Looked like a little house, made out of stone.

checked my phone once more. I then felt several more drops and when I actually flicked on my headlamp I found out my tent was leaking like a sieve, right down the middle of it, through the mesh ceiling. The rain fly was really doing nothing. At this point, I knew I was headed for home (the motel) that same day, cutting the hike short by a day. I had no

Look carefully, you can see
the drips.

problem with this, as I was feeling pretty beat up.

The smile on my face was from my Sweetie
meeting me near the end of the trail!

The Dream Catcher Motel. We were the last
unit on the left.

   Luckily the sun came out long enough for me to break camp and I was soon on my way out, happily. As I neared one of the final bends on my way off the trail, Doralyn showed up, just to walk out with me! Sweet! We made it back to the trailhead and soon

THIS woman. Can't say enough!!

were back in a warm, dry, non-leaking motel room. Huzzah!

                                                   Zara

    There were some highs and lows to this trip. And, in spite of some of the difficulties I have described, there were times when I was almost giddily happy, particularly when I found that first campsite. It was at some of those really happy times that I remembered Zara. Zara was the youngest daughter of my brother-in-law, Rob Buren and his wife Sabrina. Two weeks prior to this camping trip, Zara died as the result of a horseback riding accident. Since then, our whole family has been immersed in grief and sadness and an inability to make things right for Rob and Bri and Zara's older sister Chloe. This tempered many of those happy moments and I felt a keen sense of guilt that, as happy as I might momentarily have been, other people in my life who I loved did not currently have that ability.  Thoughts of Zara were never really very far away...             

                                           Aftermath

   As I write this, it has almost been a week since I got off trail. My body has yet to fully recover---my knees and hips are sore, my back is still stiff and my wrist hurts. I am a 67-year-old man who was not in the best of shape before the trail and then found himself on terrain more challenging than any he has ever been on. Mentally, I could right at the moment care less if I'm ever on trail again but I know most certainly that this will pass.

   I had had the goal of hiking the 35K loop of the Highland Trail and I had fallen substantially short of that. In retrospect, given the terrain and the actually dangerous conditions of the trail, I am quite happy and proud to have finished the 19K loop. And, as much as I currently have no wish to ever be on a trail again,  have already started looking at the map and figuring out a better way of doing it!

 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

     

My First Time Backpacking---So Many Lessons Learned!

   For the past year or so, I have found myself totally intrigued by the idea of strapping on a backpack, hitting a trail in a forest, setting up camp somewhere, and then doing the exact same thing the day after that. And then again the day after that...

   I've been doing long distance day hikes for the last three years  and eventually found myself following the YouTube exploits of people thru-hiking the Appalachian Tail. The AT if you are unaware, is 2,190 mile trail which runs from Georgia to Maine, in the U.S. To walk the whole thing takes anywhere from 4 to 6 months. It's an adventure unlike most, and being able to follow people actually vlogging about it was pretty addictive. This, then, was the principal thing which led to me wanting to have even a tiny little bit of that experience, just to see what it was like.

   For the last year or so, I have slowly been accumulating the bits and pieces of backpacking and camping gear I might need for this kind of adventure and this past week I decided to put all of it to some kind of test.

   The plan was to book two separate campsites at the local Fanshawe Conservation Area, do a 10K hike to get there the first day, camp overnight, hike around Lake Fanshawe (a little over 20K) the following day, camp again at the second campsite, and then hopefully hike partway home on the third day.

   There was enough flexibility in this plan that I could hike as much or as little as I was really capable of or wanted to and would still be close enough to home that if anything outrageously untoward occurred, I was within "rescuing" distance.

   Here, day by day, is how it went!

                                           DAY ONE

    I decided that I would use the Thames Valley Trail (TVT) to get to Fanshawe. I had hiked this trail back in 2017 and knew that it would take me through London, into Fanshawe, and then almost exactly to my first booked campsite.

   Doralyn, my wife, graciously agreed to drive me to the park office at Fanshawe so I could pick up my permit and then drove me to the east end of Windermere, where it joined up with the TVT. A pic and a quick kiss and I was on my way!

   About 15 minutes into the hike, it started to rain. The skies had been a little threatening and at one point a couple of days earlier the forecast had been such that I had actually thought about postponing the trip for a day or two. But then, I thought, thruhikers rarely have the option of avoiding bad weather and if I was truly interested in approximating their experience, I should just try and deal with it. As luck would have it, though, the forest canopy kept me quite dry and by the time I was out of the woods the rain had stopped.

   At this point, there was about 3K's worth of roadwalking to get to the border  of the conservation area. I then headed back into the woods. I eventually found myself at the foot of Fanshawe dam (the dam which had created the lake) and from there another 3K or so to the actual campsite.

Apart from one night I'd spent in my backyard last summer making sure I knew how to erect my tent and getting the feel of

the sleep system, such as it was, I couldn't really remember the last time I had actually camped anywhere. Likely back in the late seventies, I figured, so it was just a little surreal sitting there at a camp table, knowing I was there for the night. Cooked myself a Mountain House Chicken Teriyaki With Rice meal (yummy), had a coffee and a whiskey and then headed off to bed. To help approximate a deep wilderness thruhike, I had brought along a bear bag, which I then filled with all my food and, because I could not find a suitable branch to hang it from, I left it on the ground, tied up to the leg of a picnic table.           

   Okay, the bear bag thing was my first lesson.

   I had something called an Ursack and it has been described and advertised as something pretty indestructible that a bear and other critters will not be able to get into. Generally, you attach a bear bag to a rope, throw the rope up over a tree branch, and let the bag dangle there, out of reach of bears. The Ursack bear bag is designed so that you can do that or attach it to a trunk or lower part of the tree and, if you have attached it correctly, the bear will neither be able to get into it nor simply drag it off. 

   MY problem that first night was not bears (there are generally no bears in SW Ontario) but raccoons!

   Any camper knows that you need to plan around raccoons wanting to get at your food supply overnight. I anticipated raccoons but also thought that my Ursack would provide adequate protection. It didn't.

   Shortly after bedding down, I began to hear the raccoons trying to get into it. At first, I though it was just the one raccoon but, when I shone my headlamp out the tent door, I could see the one raccoon at the bag but then three other sets of creepily glowing eyes floating around it. The light seemed to disperse them and I went back to sleep. About 2:00 am., though, I was awakened by the loud sounds of raccoons once again going at it. At this point, the noise was so loud that I was worried about nearby campers being disturbed so I went and retrieved the bag and brought it back into the tent.

   In the morning, I was better able to see the damage.

   The Ursack had not structurally given way but the you could see teeth and claw marks all over it. When I opened it up, many of the ziplock bags with food in them had been punctured and some of the contents dispersed. A bag of trail mix and another bag of cheesies and goldfish got tossed as well. So the raccoons had not gotten in to the Ursak but the sheer force of their teeth and claws and being given free rein to "have at it", so to say, had produced both an undesirable and avoidable result. I believe if I had simply tried harder to suspend it from some kind of low tree branch, much of the damage might have been eliminated. First lesson learned!

Me, at the beginning

First ten minutes of the journey.

Along the way.

This part of the TVT runs basically through
peoples' backyards.

The un-scenic stretch of the TVT.

Entering Fanshawe Conservation Area.

Seems to be a gathering spot. 

The lovely Thames River

Made it to Fanshawe Dam

And then to my first-night campsite.

All set up!

Supper

                                           DAY TWO

   It had rained overnight but the fly on my tent help up nicely and by the time I got up around 7:00 a.m. the skies were clearing and the sun had risen.

   I set about cooking some oatmeal and drinking a couple of coffees. The washrooms were a couple of hundred yards away and, after a couple of trips there and some food, I was feeling pretty mellow. Spent a leisurely kind of morning packing up the tent and supplies and then headed off.

   I had a very loose plan for the day---if things went very well I wanted to walk all the way around Lake Fanshawe and then return to the second campsite I'd booked. This return route would take me right past the park office, where I'd be able to pick up my permit for the second night.

   It was a "loose" plan because I was simply unsure of my capabilities. I had, in the past, hiked 20K but I had never hiked anywhere two days in a row and I had certainly never done this while also carrying a 30 lb. backpack! 

   I started off by getting back on the TVT and starting up the west bank of Fanshawe, headed north. The plan was to hike 7K,  assess how I felt, and then make a decision as to whether to retrace my steps for a 14K hike or travel all the way around the lake. At this point, I was in that grey area where if I traveled much farther it would be just as far to keep on going around the lake as it would be to walk back the way I'd come. Ultimately, I decided to go with the original plan and just continue on around the lake.

   The trail that hikers use to circumnavigate the lake is also the same trail that the mountainbikers use. It's been set up by the conservation authority that bikers will go clockwise on even-numbered days and then reverse that on odd-numbered ones. As a hiker, then, one of the things you need to plan around is hiking in a direction when you will face oncoming bikers, otherwise you run the very real risk of being run down from behind before you even realize someone's coming up behind you. Fortunately, my timing with the dates had coincided nicely with the direction around the lake I preferred to walk in!

   All in all, it was a beautiful day for a hike. It was a little hotter, about 29C (84F), than you might want for a long hike but much of it was in the shade of trees and there was also a nice little breeze to cool you down a bit. The scenery, as well, was beautiful and it was always hard to know when to stop and take pics because every time you went around a corner something even more beautiful appeared.

   Round about the last 5K of the hike, the heat and the accumulated energy I'd spent over the last two days started to take its toll. I found myself needing to take longer breaks where I'd remove the pack and sit for a bit as well as shorter ones where I needed to lean over at the knees and give my back a rest. My recollection was that there was an ice cream cooler at the park office I would need to stop in at and it was during that final 4K that I used the image of ice cream to spur me on and keep me going. I had rationed the water to the point where I had taken my last gulp about a hundred yards away from the office. I got to the office, let my pack fall off of me, crawled up the wooden steps to the door and....the office was closed!

   I couldn't believe it. The day before, the office employee indicated that the office was open until 8:00 p.m. and I had factored this into my hiking plans for the day. I had arrived there around 7:00 feeling pretty safe until...I wasn't. I sat down on the steps, feeling very weak and woe-begone. As luck would have it, one of the seasonal campers pulled up on her e-bike, wanting to do some office business. She was also confused at to the office's early closing. I told her my story about how desperately I'd been looking forward to ice cream so she went back to her trailer and returned with an ice cream Klondike bar! And, while she was gone, one the park security guys showed up to check out the office and he filled up my Smartwater bottle for me. He also indicated to me that they had stopped selling ice cream due to COVID. I think that, between the ice cream and the water, it was the only thing that enabled me to make it back to camp.

   Once back, and feeling a little re-freshened, I set up camp again and had a bite to eat. Checked my Garmin and found that I had traveled almost 24K that day, a new record for me! Not long after that, was down again for the night. Here is where I  learned my second lesson.

   I can't sleep on closed-cell foam pads. For the most part, I'm a side sleeper and a foam pad just doesn't offer the hip cushioning I really need. Watching AT hikers on YouTube had shown me a mix of people using foam pads vs. people using inflatable ones. I have decided that I am one of the people who will be blowing up his mattress at the end of the day. Had a pretty restless night trying to get comfortable and, on top if all, I was experiencing leg cramps, from the day's exertion.

The aftermath of the raccoons having 
their way with my bear bag.

Lake Fanshawe

Hard to believe, but this used to be a sandy beach.

Sitting here, deciding to go all the way!

The result of "going all the way".

Pretty little creek

There's a yacht club on the lake.

Can only imagine this tree will
be in the lake sometime soon.

                                           DAY THREE

   I had gone to bed the previous night fully expecting to be suffering in the morning. As previously mentioned, I had never hiked two days in a row, had never hiked 24K in one day and had never backpacked. I ended up, however, feeling great. In spite of all the poor sleep and exertion, I was feeling quite content and mellow. I had no specific plans for the day and no need to be out of my campsite until noon. I had a very leisurely sort of breakfast, drank three packets of instant coffee and ate a granola bar. I packed up everything just in case someone showed up at noon for the site but then just hung around, taking it easy. Now here is where I learned my third lesson. While sitting there at the picnic table at my campsite, I had the beginnings of a "grey out" or "syncope", the precursor to actually fainting.

   I have had these spells in the past, but only in conjunction with extreme coughing fits. I have never had one before while I was just somewhere sitting, looking down at my phone. I raised my head quickly and the feeling went away just as fast as it had come but it did give me some concern.

   I seemed to feel fine if I was up and moving around so I threw on the backpack and headed off, toward the park entrance. Fanshawe dam comes before the park entrance and I wanted to stop back in there at the base of it to see if there was any sign of my Swiss army knife, which had gone missing. It had been in the same pocket of my backpack as a pack of trail mix I'd consumed on my first day when I had passed the dam on my way in. Thought it might have dropped out of the pocket when I'd taken out the mix. Alas no knife. I did take the opportunity, though, to take off my pack, drink a little and watch the scenery. I was also doing some social media on my phone when I had my second "grey out". Once again I managed to get my head up in time and recover. I was a little worried that this had now happened twice. I had been sitting at the picnic table facing out and thought that perhaps I should turn around and face inward, just in case I actually fainted, so that the table would catch me. Then, while I was just gazing out across the river, I got slightly dizzy again.

   My plan had been to walk as far as I could that day so that Doralyn would not have to come right into the park to pick me up. In light of these dizzy spells I was having, I decided to sit put until it was time for her to come and get me.

   I spent a couple of hours by the dam and it was quite pleasant. A wildlife photographer happened by and he pointed out to me a bald eagle which was perched in a tree across the river. I then spent a long time watching it and even had the opportunity to see it swoop down to the river in an attempt to scoop up fish a couple of times, to no avail. 

   Eventually Doralyn arrived and I was on my way home again. We talked about the near-fainting episodes and came to the conclusion that there were likely a lot of different factors involved, such as over-exertion for three days, total change in diet, lack of salt, etc. This all served as my third lesson!

Sitting at my campsite, soaking
in the sun, mellowing.

At a table by the dam, waiting for my Sweetie.
If you look very carefully, there's a bald eagle
in the tree across the river.

                                  LESSONS RE-CAPPED

   1. Unless you're actually in bear country, you either need to keep your food in your tent, or at least not on the ground, for goodness' sake!

   2. Find something comfy to sleep on before you need to sleep on something that isn't.

   3. Spend a little more time figuring out what your body's needs and limitations are, nutrition-wise. A three-day backpacking trip is not the same as three consecutive day hikes.

                                         LESSON FOUR

    I knew that this was always going to be a learning experience and this is why I took it on in the first place. I've described some of the more concrete things I've learned and there are probably a handful of smaller things that weren't worth spending the time to write about. There was, however, one thing I learned which kind of went above and beyond, while still encompassing, all of those other things so let me describe that one thing to you.

   I CAN DO THIS!

   I wasn't sure I could do this.

   I truly wasn't sure I could do this and was quite prepared to have any or all of it explode in my face. It wasn't something I was worried about not working out because I knew I was trying to do a bunch of things all at once that I had never done singly before---I had never hiked with a thirty pound backpack, I had never hiked two days in a row, I had never camped in the middle of all that and I had never hiked 24 kilometers before. 

   Any of the parts of this adventure could, and maybe should, have failed miserably. I was quite prepared for that and, frankly, that would have been okay. There were things I learned and ideas I now have which, I'm sure, will make this much easier in the future. This time, though, I did them the hard way!