I did a hike yesterday that I oh so enjoyed! I wish I had taken some pictures of the beautiful scenery for here but I was using this app called Runtastic to track my hike and started with less then half my phone battery life left and I had doubt that the battery would last if I also took pics lol. Next time I will make sure the phone is fully charged, promise! 🙂
I was soooo excited for this hike, had been wanting to do it since before I went to Los Angeles but I just never had the time…or thought I didn’t!
All the Provincial Park info said the 8km hike that I was planning would have a total time of 4 hours. Now, I don’t know how they calculated the time it would take, I assume that takes in to account terrain, averages from other hikers and a bunch of other stuff I don’t generally think about lol. I took the Park’s information as fact and that is why I hadn’t gotten around to doing this hike yet because I had to make sure I had minimum 4 hours available and that I started early enough in the day I wasn’t risking getting caught in the woods after dark.
Now, you may be thinking I am being overly dramatic about being in the woods when it is dark because how much wilderness could it possibly be? Lemme tell ya, this is Canada, there is a lot of wilderness and the head of the trail is full of info for keeping the bears etc away and all the gear you are supposed to take with you “just in case”…I took almost none of the gear cause that’s just how I roll 😉 lol I took two bottles of water, a Clif Bar, ID, chapstick, sunscreen…that’s about it. I mean come on, how much do you really need to survive for 4 hours? Not that much! And if I was in there for longer then the 4 hours I was most likely in some sort of trouble and that extra gear well, would be helpful but I’d be holding out for a rescue team lol 😛
The trail started off flat and easy then I took a turn that leads to a higher intensity trail…who wants easy? Pfft! Not I! 😛 The majority of my hike was spent alternating between steep inclines and windy smaller inclines…if that makes any sense? I lost the trail in a minor way once or twice and in a serious way only once. For me that is pretty good because my sense of direction is generally sucky and not like there are that many markers in the forest lol trees all look the same!
Sad to say I encountered no wildlife…although, since I had none of the gear meant to help me in animal scenarios I guess that’s a good thing? lol Less interesting but good. 🙂
During the 7th km I tripped and scraped up my right knee and left hand, sigh. My right knee now looks like it belongs to a 12 year old tomboy, soooo not attractive! Thank goodness my body clots well lol The knee itself isn’t as bruised as I thought it would be but I’m in that unfortunate phase of healing where pants hurt cause of the friction but wearing a dress or skirt means showing off an ugly knee and having to repeatedly explain what happened. I’m not happy with either of those options but not much I can do about it *rolls eyes*
Left side is in the car right after the hike. Right side is the day after. And yes, I am just that pale! 😛
Back to the timing of the hike, like I had mentioned above, all official information I had for this hike said it would take 4 hours. That seemed like a long time for 8km but I figured if the terrain was hard enough that could make sense, right?
Well here is a picture of my results from my Runtastic App…
Screenshot of my Runtastic App
I did 8.62km in 1 hour and 57 minutes…a much more respectable time but not at all what I expected! Sooooo, perhaps the people who came up with the timing for the hike went along the trail backwards? How else could I cut the time in half? I double checked the info at the head of the trail, thinking maybe I read the time needed to complete the hike incorrectly but I didn’t, it really said 4 hours. I just don’t get it…My dad suggested most people take the trail at a slower pace and aren’t zipping along trying to be the fastest to complete the trail lol I pointed out I wasn’t trying to be the fastest, just get a good workout (which I did)…and I suppose other people might use the trail for a more social outing but I don’t think so. The easy part of the trail sure! I saw people there with dogs, walking at a slower pace while talking with whomever they were with but the harder trail? I saw one other person on it the entire time and she was like me, hiking gear, obviously working out, not lingering anywhere…I guess this will be one of those things I remain confused about but hey, who doesn’t like having some mystery in their life? 😉 lol
All in all I really enjoyed the hike, am very glad I finally got around to doing it. Now that I know it only takes two hours I have hope I will be able to hike it again before we lose our nice weather. I won’t hike it in the winter because parts of the trail were already partially washed out when I went yesterday from the rain we had earlier in the week. I had a couple times I detoured around the trail to avoid walking through water…wet feet is so not a thing I enjoy 😛
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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