Our first overnight adventure, this Victoria Day weekend, was meant as a practice run, to try out gear, food, and our endurance conditioning. Our plan was to leave Saturday evening and go until Sunday at around noon, around 20 hours. The plan was to start at 4pm, hike 10 hrs until around 2 am, then bike 4 hrs until around 7, and then canoe another 4 hrs until noon.
In the end we didn't hit those targets, but we definitely experienced a good test of our abilities and endurance.
We left from Two Pines, on the Eardley-Masham road, in the western end of Gatineau park. We hiked 13km on a lesser-known but somewhat marked trail to the Fire Tower, arriving at 11pm. We did more hiking, until about 2:30am.
On the way, we caught the eastern edge of a big thunderstorm heading northeast. Lightning, thunder, and HAIL, oh yes, hail. But we were rewarded with a magnificent view (see photo) at about 8:30 pm. Not only did we see the Second Rainbow, outside the first, but we saw both ends of the rainbow, AND the exact location of the southern end. (btw I'll give away the Pot of Gold to the highest bidder at our BBQ next weekend ;-)
After the hike, we picked up the bikes and drove to P10, where we started out on the #1 trail, also known as Ridge Road. It's a wide trail with some rocks and sometimes gravel. A few hills. It was by then 6:00 am, and the sun was coming up on a beautiful morning. We had a fun ride for 1.5 hrs, and we could have easily gone longer, but we didn't want to be late for meeting Hai, who was to join us for the canoe portion.
Hai brought Paul and I coffee, for which we are very, very, very, grateful. (I will probably bring chocolate covered coffee beans for the race, in order to maintain a pleasant demeanor when my 'coffee monster' wakes up at 7am). We drove up to Meech lake, and got out the canoes. We canoed from 9-11:30, about 2.5 hrs, and about two laps of the lake.
So we all learned a lot from this. I won't speak for Paul or Lucy, but here are a few of the things I learned.
-FOOD: I never got too hungry, consuming about 2000 calories, mostly in power bars, gels, some Cheetos, cookies, and a couple meal replacement shakes. It's important to have these handy so you can grab something on the go.
-BRAINFOOD: I need to print out the all the words to familiar songs like - American Pie, Yellow Submarine, They call me Mellow Yellow, and more. Singing helps pass the time and keep the bears away, but my teammates are going to shoot me if I don't learn all the words.
-WATER: I didn't even get through all of my 2L water bladder in my pack.
-GEAR: We have to try to find a system to hit the right clothing combinations when we leave the Transition point, or it slows the team down when one or two have to stop and change on the trail. (Not to mention that stopping on the trail is a great opportunity for the bugs to feast on your flesh)
-TRANSITIONS: We need to work on speeding up our transitions. Not including the drives, i think our transitions were at least 40 min each. That's probably too much, and we will have to work hard to cut those down to 25 min each.
-ENDURANCE CONDITIONING: Again, I won't speak for Paul or Lucy, but while I was tired, I wasn't incapacitated. My muscles still worked, and I could have kept going. That being said, we didn't undertake a major test of our brains after 20 hours awake, so that is still somewhat in question.
It's a challenge for sure, and that's what we're in this for.
I woke up this morning, (after a 15hr sleep) to another email from a friend who has donated to our fund to raise money for the ORCF.
Thanks again everyone!
p.s. Don't forget our BBQ on Saturday May 24. Details in the post below. EVERYONE IS INVITED! Send us an email (oomla@yahoo.ca) if you plan to join us.
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