Wow! I never realized I had not done a series of posts about our summer 2023 adventure. Probably because it was a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t expecting my missus was going to be up for a trail this summer, because she had some trips for her new career planned and she didn’t think she would have the energy. But 2 weeks ahead of our planned vacation time, she says, “Wanna do Gros Morne?”
Now, some explanation. Gros Morne is a place of stunning beauty – a national park in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Basically, if you have ever seen a picture of a national park in Canada, it’s either Banff or Gros Morne. This view is what it’s most famous for:
Stunning, right? Funny thing is this view isn’t even of the park’s namesake: Gros Morne mountain, the tallest mountain in Newfoundland, and part of the International Appalachian Trail.
She wasn’t interested in hiking the mountain – oh no. That would be far too easy. This park does have a number of trails, but they are mostly dayhikes. What it does have is a famous route: the Long Range Traverse. About 35km through the Newfoundland wilderness, with no official trail. Just a route. Through swamps, the thickest brush you’ve ever seen, more swamps, and more brush, oh and some very rocky mountains (shorter, but rugged).
The Long Range Traverse is the most popular – you take a beautiful boat ride up the above gorge to the eastern end, hike (read: climb) up a waterfall, then head out. It ends roughly 3 days later at Gros Morne mountain where you can elect to head down to the parking lot or add another 5-10km to summit the mountain first.
But there’s more. There is another traverse. The Northern Traverse. A much harder, much more rugged, equal lengthed traverse. Taking both traverses circumnavigates Western Brook Pond and doubles the time in the backcountry. And she suggested we do both.
I’m a sucker for a challenge so I didn’t have to be convinced. We made a plan: 7 days to do both traverses! A paltry 70km – 10km a day! Surely that will be easy! I called ahead to make a reservation – they only allow three hiking groups per day on each traverse. the LRT I was fortunate – I got pretty close to the dates we were interested in. The NT was no problem – as far as I know we were the only people on that traverse at the time we went.
We drove down to Rocky Harbour, and stayed in a lovely place on Cow Bay the night before the trail. We also had to attend a mandatory trail briefing at the visitor’s centre, where an experienced hiker and trail guide did her level best to talk us out of going. She told us the LRT would involve pain and suffering most likely. When we told her we were doing the NT too, she said she guaranteed pain and suffering. She warned us of all kinds of dangers – from thick fog to deep swamps to getting lost, to falling and twisting or breaking things, to cold rain and even a chance of snow just about any time of year. One thing she did NOT say was a danger was bears. Oh sure, there were lots of bears, but apparently the bears in their park run from people – and have no interest in people food. According to her they have never had a negative bear interaction reported by hikers. Not one. Ok…
The next day we hit the trail. I’ll do a post for each day on the trail. Stay tuned!
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