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!
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| Me, at the beginning |
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| First ten minutes of the journey. |
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| Along the way. |
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| This part of the TVT runs basically through peoples' backyards. |
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| The un-scenic stretch of the TVT. |
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| Entering Fanshawe Conservation Area. |
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| Seems to be a gathering spot. |
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| The lovely Thames River |
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| Made it to Fanshawe Dam |
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| And then to my first-night campsite. |
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| All set up! |
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| 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.
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| The aftermath of the raccoons having their way with my bear bag. |
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| Lake Fanshawe |
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| Hard to believe, but this used to be a sandy beach. |
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| Sitting here, deciding to go all the way! |
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| The result of "going all the way". |
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| Pretty little creek |
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| There's a yacht club on the lake. |
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| 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!
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| Sitting at my campsite, soaking in the sun, mellowing. |
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| 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!
Thanks Brian. Congrats on your accomplishment!
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