Monday, July 20, 2009

En Route to Newfoundland (almost)


BEG & I are soon to embark on a 7 day backpacking excursion in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland. I was last there (also backpacking) in 1996? On our trek (hiking routes shown in red) we plan to first hike across the Earth's mantle in the Tablelands, but in order to get there from the airport in Deer Lake we need to rent a car. The rental car route we're planning on is shown in turquoise. Then we have to make our way from the south end of the park around a fjord to get to the visitor's center and our orientation for the Long Range Traverse. At this point having a rental car becomes very expensive when we're hanging around in the backcountry, not to mention the difficulties of retrieving it from the western side of Brook Pond when we arrive on foot back at the visitor's center. So, from our orientation, we'll take the car back to the airport and taxi our way back (shown in yellow). We'll also have to taxi up to western Brook Pond in order to catch our boat to the other side (shown in blue) where we'll commence our hike up that fjord. From there we have 35km (20mi) of unmarked map-and-compass "trail" (is it really a trail if it's not marked?) across spectacular backcountry littered with fog and moose and geology to make our south to (and up and over) Gros Morne mountain, which is part of the eroded remains of a 1.2 billion year old range.

BEG posted our adventure on Canada's "Big Wild Challenge" where we have dedicated our adventure to protecting and promoting Canada's wilderness. You can donate to this cause through supporting our challenge.

1 comment:

Missy said...

Oh my! Have a great trip! At least my "yarn" gets to go to Newfoundland...