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!