Wilderness, Ho!

Last Thursday, my friend Adrian and I decided we needed to get out of the 'burbs and reconnect with nature, so we headed out to a local provincial park known as Rattlesnake Point. Now, for those of you who know me, I have a way with getting lost even if I have a GPS, road map and a Navajo guide leading me about by the hand. I'm not to be left to my own devices. So in the woods, on a hike by our lonesome selves, we probably should have been dressed like this:

But instead we were two city kids looking for a small time nature walk and got far more than we bartered for.
STOCK
Adrian                             Me
• sneakers                         • boots
• jeans                               • jeans
• t-shirt                             • t-shirt
• cellphone                        • light jacket
• wallet                              • backpack: 2 sandwiches, 2 mini bags of chips, 2 iced tea, & 2 notebooks

Also, my wallet, which would have been useful in the chance we died out in the forest and they needed something to ID my body after the raccoons made off with my Visa, and oh, I don't know, ate my face.

We hit a short trail which took us to an awesome drop off filled with trees and swooping turkey vultures. After taking in the view, we decided we still had ALLLLLL DAY and took on a more advanced trail, which the sign proclaimed to be 2-3 hours in length. I know what you're thinking but not yet...wait for it. We made it to the second lookout by Nassagaweya Canyon after a trek through the deep woods, up hills, past caves, all the while being eaten my mosquitos and every other bug in the Canadian wilderness. By the time we got to the lookout, we were pretty tired, itchy, sweaty and starved, so we stopped to eat and enjoyed the view.

This moment of earthly tranquility and sandwich nomminess was interrupted when two women and their entourage of toddlers including ONE IN A BABY CARRIAGE showed up. Having come over hell and high water to arrive at the lookout we were stunned. Either these were super toddlers, capable of taking on the lows and highs of the land or-- oh my god there had to be an easier path back. We were determined to find it.

Did you ever go on a field trip as a child where there was a recreation of an old city or town to give young'uns a piece of a the past? Because we ended up wandering through an abandoned  educational Native village complete with barracks, two longhouses and signal fires waiting to be lit. It was pretty awesome, feeling like the last people on earth.

We shortly realized after this (we've been walking about for about 4-5 hours now) that we have to take the long path back to where we parked, and thus were looking at another 2 hour ass drag through the hardened woods. Which totally would have been okay if it hadn't started drizzling and one of us had the brains to remember bug repellant. Spoiler alert: We didn't.  And even THAT would have been okay if we were able to read the maps properly. The goal was to NOT get lost in the woods. Double spoiler: we totally did.

We were following blue and white trail markings through the woods for about two hours. Oh. Except we lost the blue trail markings. And by the deep woods I mean over and under, rock climbing, no signs of civilization, 'well-I-guess-that-looks-like-a-path-if-you-don't-mind-breaking-both-ankles', giant bugs infesting our hair and taking  great bleeding chunks out of us, saying your goodbyes, kind of deep woods.

We crossed two roads before we realized we were definitely not going the right way any longer.
In fact through the magic of data and technology, we discovered were a full 7 kilometers away from the park where we had parked. Which means we had hiked 7KM out already. After having been hiking all afternoon. My face at that moment:

Rather than heading back into the woods, we proceeded to walk via the road, all the way talking about life, how the day could have easily turned into a horror film and been axed to death my a mad woodsman and breathing the bug free air. We were also becoming more tired and more hungry, and finally, my feet had given in and decided to be sore.

 Somewhere in time and space, I was missing the Thursday Burlington Slam Project and could tell neither Justin nor Rebekah, the two people who I had planned to go with because we were off the grid. Which sounds far cooler than it actually is. 

Of course, that totally would have been fine if at the end of it all we didn't have to walk up a hill that was practically a 90 degree incline-- oh wait we did that too. It was the one hill our trusty Buick almost didn't make it up at the beginning of the day, so 8 hours and probably 20+ kilometers of hiking ago. When we were fresh and optimistic.  We were shooting for the address of 7200 and starting at...7074.

It was steep as hell.  Our feet were aching with the ferocity of 17 rabid ligers, shredding their own swollen mosquito bites. We were both sweating and gasping as we climbed. And climbed. And CLIMBED. And while this small Everest expedition transpired, cars leaving the park on the hairpin turns DOWN the hill almost killed us. And then had the audacity to HONK at us about almost killing us.

When we FINALLY made it to the top of the hill, I believe I screamed "LAND!" and ran for the entrance, kissing the sign. that sign. You better believe it.

 We were deliriously high off of our victory against nature, and when we got back into civilization, we went out for pub food, proudly bearing the bites and beatings the wilderness had inflicted. Changed, like no one else knew what we had been through. 

Would I do it again? ABSOLUTELY! But next time, I'm bringing bug repellant, more food and oh...I don't know. Two Navajo trail guides.