Fall is my favourite season

The tittle sums it up well, fall is indeed my favourite season and with the wonderful weather that we have been treated to over the last few weeks it quickly erases any rainy days of the past. With cool, dry temps and gorgeous fall colours it is the perfect time to spend as many hours outside as possible. Riding, running, hiking, climbing and trying to use my camera as much as possible... Which is always not as much as I hope for. Anyways I hope everyone has had as good of a few weeks enjoying the outdoors as much as I have because soon there is going to be white gold all over the ground!

Frontenac perimeter trail fkt

As I sit on the couch with a bag of ice on my right ankle from a little sprain on yesterday's trail run listening to the rain falling outside I ponder the idea of writing about the new fkt that I set on the Frontenac perimeter trail last Friday.

I made the 2.5hr drive down the beautiful park and was welcomed by warm sunshine (which would come later as a hot sun) and beautiful fall colours. The day was almost perfect. The trail was mostly dry and only had moderate leaf coverage (which would lead to a few stubbed toes and eventually 5 black toe nails). I loaded up my pack with enough food for 5hrs and enough water to get me to the half way point where I would purify two bottles with aqua tabs for the 2nd half of the run. I went out at a good pace and in a counterclockwise direction. I did the first 11km in just under a hour, knowing that the next 10km we're going to be slightly more difficult technically. The open sections of the trail along the south and east were apparently only 25 degrees Celsius but the lack of cloud cover made the day feel like a hot July afternoon. I was felling great and having a blast. Again the fall colours made the scenery most pleasing on the eyes. I passed the odd hiker and always tried my best not to startle them as I approached. I made it to the approximate half way point, where I will fill my bottles with very questionable drinking water. I popped one aqua tab in each 700ml bottle and with a quick shoe lace tighten and check of the map, I was running again only being stopped for exactly 3 mins. Now I have had trouble in the past dealing with aqua tabs and there effect on my stomach. The directions state that one Aqua tab is to be used in 1.5-2L of water. I had no option but to use one tab in each 700ml bottle making the water very potent. I still had one more bottle to get me to hour three and only needed the two purified ones for the last 15km. Like I said before, it was hot out and I was drinking allot of fluid. After waiting 45 min for the bottles to purify and once my third bottle was empty, I had no option to start drinking the water that I knew was going to make my tummy grumble.

I was aiming for a time in or around the 4hr 30min mark. I needed to average 10km/hr for that. Coming into the last 15 km I knew that a time very to close to my goal was indeed going to be attainable. In a fight with my stomach I pressed on keeping the pace as high as I could. "Light fast feet" I would tell myself over and over again. "Light fast feet", only 10km to go! I was starting to really feel the side affects of the sun and luckily the last stretch was fairly shaded. I kept running literally and crunching the numbers in my head. "Come on Eric, almost there. Keep the feet light and steps quick". I knew that every step I made was one closer to the trailhead and my car which was the gateway to the chip truck parked in the town Syndeham. 

I had run the trail in the spring of last year and was still familiar with many of the sections I was passing. I knew I was getting close an upped the pace hoping to get in under the 4.5hr time... I hit the final one km and let it all out. 3min km's to finish a splendid day on the trails. I passed the trailhead with a time of 4hr 31min and 20sec. I was close enough to make a smile and with nobody around I could finally let the pee out that I had been holding for the last few hours... :)

Frontenac is truly a beautiful park and if you have not visited it, you very much need to make the short trip to spend some time there! 

Photos and a brief trip report from La Cloche trail Killarney July 2013

Late July, Eden, Rambo (our dog) and I hike the La Cloche Trail in Killarney in a clockwise fashion over 3 days and 3 nights. Well I guess it is technically 4 days but we didn't start to noon the first day and we were out by early morning on the fourth day, so I will call it 3 days because it is just shy of 72 hours.. :) 

The first day we left the George lake campground and hiked up through the crack along Killarney Ridge to H45 on Bunnyrabbit lake. We were there in around 6 hours and the gps read 18.45km with 610m of elevation gain. We also ran into a big bear along the portage before Heaven Lake. The bear was BIG and did not care that we were there.

Day two we hiked from Bunnyrabbit all the way over to Shigaug H31 including Silver Peak.  The GPS read 25km and 1100m elevation gain. We were 8hrs and 10min for this section.

Day three was the longest day distance wise. We Hiked from H31 on Shigaug lake all the way to H6 on Cave lake. The GPS file read 31km and 750m elevation gain. Our time was 10hrs on the dot.

Day four was short at only 2hrs and 7.5km with 200m elevation gain. 

Although this was my fourth time around the wonderful park it was however my first time backpacking it! The three previous times I had run the trail and was not able to enjoy the true beauty that it is. This time was perfect! No visit to Killarney is complete without a stop at the fish n' chip bus on the water, what a treat!

Enjoy a few of the photos.

Canada Day Rock Climbing

Photo TR

85km, 16500ft ascent and descent, all on some very stout terrain. Here are a few pics from our trip.

Trail Running Photos

I have been logging a solid amount of training time over the last few weeks, 3 days on and 2 days off. It seems to be working well, except on the "off days" I am usually working 12-14 hours climbing trees, slugging wood and dragging brush. I guess I could count that work time as training as well.... Hmmm.

I have a two handful's of adventure and racing planned for this year most of which will start in June and carry on until December. More details on that list coming soon.

Here are a few photos from a rainy trail run this morning. All the images are shot with the Fuji x100s.

Happy Trails!

North Rim and Long Range Traverse Gros Morne National Park

Here is a pic of the 3 day route that Eden and I completed last summer. If you are a good hiker with strong navigational skills then this route is attainable in 3 days. If you would are planning on doing either the north rim or long range and want some more info or beta on or route choice, let me know. We were told that the north rim was horrendous tuck bushwhacking, we experienced max 70-90mins of tuck.... We also chose a completely different route then the park suggested. I found the north rim to very enjoyable and the wilderness we were immersed in was amazing!