I figured I would blog about our journey to Grey Owl's cabin and back, as I don't feel like explaining the story to every individual who asks... or.. i will be able to atleast narrow down some of the questions... here's how it went..
First off, if you didn't know about this trip... the plan was to hike to grey owl's cabin and back on zero food. It was to be a spiritual journey about hitting rock bottom to learn about yourself. In total, the hike was to be 40 km.
We left Saskatoon at 12:25 on Saturday. Drove to Prince Albert where we picked up Sean for the trip. We picked up some supplies that we weren't organized enough to pick up sooner such as high energy bars, mosquito spray, and bigger, better backpacks.
We ate at Tim Hortons before leaving Prince Albert and headed up to Waskesiu. We got to the information booth where we had to purchase our "outback" passes. (basically paying our way onto the trail.) The bitch at the booth told us there was no room on the camp sites for us. And I said "oh no! we didn't know you had to make reservations!" this is where she explained that grey owl's trail was first come first serve...
Yes, I was very upset by this. So we left for a couple of minutes for a smoke and we decided we were going to hike the trip all night and not camp. hahaha.
So we went back in to buy our passes.. and she figured out that there was a campsite we could camp at. Which was the site closest to grey owl's cabin.
We started our hike at 6:30 in the pm. Sean's leg cramped up really badly and we pushed on for a couple km. We realized were were not going to make it to ANY campsite by this time.. as it was dark out and we had only 1 flashlight.
We found.. what seemed like flat ground about 30 ft off the trail in the middle of nowhere.. So we set up camp.. and regan and i invented our own bear cache. (so the bears don't smell your food and come sniffing.)
So Trev slept on a log (in the tent) and i was cuddled up half spooning him. My face was so close to the edge of the tent that i slept to the sound of buzzing mosquitos's attempting to bite me through the tent..
The mosquito's were intense. I think we would have all hung onto sanity quite abit better if there were no mosquito's.. if i flipped at all, it was because of the those little fuckers.
In the morning we continued towards grey owl's trail. We promised eachother that we wouldn't talk about food in hopes of keeping that pain to ourselves and letting eachother cheat.
Sean had it pretty rough and ate the first night.
That morning, we packed up our stuff and continued towards the cabin. After about an hour and a half, we realized there wouldn't be enough time to make it back to our car before dark. None of us wanted to turn around, but the alternative (sleeping in the middle of no where again) was a worse alternative. So.. regretfully we turned around.
Hiking back, our morale was pretty low. I was so fed up with the mosquito's that they pushed me to hike faster and harder. Before being frustrated with the mosquito's, i was walking like a drunk due to overexhaustion and hunger. Mind over matter. It seriously works.. I was amazed with myself.
Trev ended up eating at around 2 in the afternoon.. (i think) and Regan ate afew minutes after that. I broke down and ate during our next pit stop..
After finally making back to the car, we still accomplished something more important that making it to grey owl's cabin. We learnt alot about ourselves and eachother..
It was hard work and we did not have fun. Except for swim breaks.. but those werent' even fun because we had the dread of hiking lingering in our minds. But ultimately, no regrets...
Thanks for reading..
