If you live in southern Saskatchewan, and want to do some backcountry activities, there are really not a whole lot of options available. I believe the only parks that allow backcountry camping and that have the infrastructure for it are Grasslands National Park (mostly all random camping), Prince Albert National Park , and various provincial parks north of PA. Either way, if you live in Regina, you are looking at a 4-5 hour drive for a backcountry experience. Summer had come to an end and winter is closing in on fall. We wanted to get one more backpacking trip before the snow and cold. Since with our collective travels we have already hit up PA and Grasslands. we looked to the mysterious east at Riding Mountain National Park.
yes..very mysterious indeed
So it was decided. We would venture out to Riding Mountain. We called ahead making reservations for our campsites. They actually required fairly detailed information. We had to tell them which site we would be at each night, make and model of car ect... Our adventure would span 4 days, 3 sleeps and 53km on the trail by the end. We were out of town by 8am on Friday Oct 12, of course stopping at Mcdonalds for a pancake breakfast, because its not a road trip WITHOUT PANCAKES. We cruised out, stomachs full, old time rock'n roll soothing the soul, and left behind "life" in Regina. George sat this one out.
you don't become a doctor by skipping school George
I think it would have been a shorter drive than PA or Grasslands but we had a couple ..um..detours due to lack of checking GPS... We seem to be good at these inconvenient detours, like the time we ended up 2 hours away from our destination - by the way Drumheller and Dinosaur Provincial Park are two very different places. As we slowly found our way to Riding Mountain we exchanged calls with a shuttle service that operates around the park. They're called The Shuttle Bug. We needed the shuttle because we were driving in our own car to the trail head we would finish the hike at. The shuttle would take us to our actual start of our trail. We wanted to do this to avoid backtracking on the trail- its always nice to be seeing something new, but also because with the layout of the trail system , you can only do a loop for a rather short distance. It was kind of like, you can either do a long distance trip, or a short distance trip.I should mention too that your are completely free to plan your own route. Some people like to take two cars, but for two people that would be both a lonely and uneconomical drive.
The Gameplan
And as a word of warning, make sure you gas up in Elphinstone, if you were to go the way we did. There is a little convenience store at the top of the hill, but they are closed from 12:00-1:00, which is naturally the time we came through. We were suppose to meet the shuttle at a parking lot by the bison enclosure area but we couldn't find it so we waited at a junction for the shuttle company and then we followed them there. turns out we just never drove far enough up the road. The Shuttle Bugs were very friendly and there was one guy who was very knowledgeable about the area. He has spent lots of time on the trails doing maintenance and clearing. we talked about wolves and bison and bison bloodlines and what not. I could have listened all day.
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
Dean adjusts his trekking poles
Well actually no, i like to think the adventure starts when you leave your front door and ends when you step back in. it aint over until is over. It was about 3 pm by the time we get to our trail head- The Baldy Lake parking lot. Sun goes down around 6-7 at that time of year. And we had 17km to go until campsite number uno.We said our goodbyes to the shuttle people, and took a picture with their van. We made our Final adjustments to our gear and started off into the wilderness.
and in we went
The trail to be honest was more like a grassy road than a rugged and rooty trail you might picture. It was nice to walk on i guess but it does take away from the back country feel. I Think the entire central trail is like this. Maintenance and access is much more convenient for park staff however.
We probably stopped like 7 times in the first hour. You really just have to fine tune that pack! I find its always the hardest at the start. Once you get going, the km start to come quickly. The trick is to not constantly check the gps distance. Its never as far as it feels like! when your friends ask you to look you say that youl check it up around the bend because they always forget by then hehehehe.
"ASK ME ABOUT MY GPS ONE MORE TIME"
"hey check your gps again"
UP AROUND THE BEND
One thing i never realized about the park is how seemingly teeming it is with wildlife! that or we really just lucked out. It was a good start when we saw an eastern bluebird during the shuttle ride. The guy in the van was talking about how you kind of have 3 different ecozones in the park. You have your boreal forest, aspen parkland, and fescue prairie all kind of meeting in the park, not to mention the various marshy wetlands you encounter too. That's a great recipe for all kinds different birds and mammals. If we had been in the park a month earlier during a more prominent migration with the trees sporting their fall colours, it would have been unreal! But we still saw something very cool. Very MaJeSTiC! A lone wolf on the trail... Yup. We were about three kms into the trail. We came up around the bend, and there it was, a majestic wolf standing on the trail just looking at us.
INTO OUR SOULS
We knew there were wolves in the park. We thought we would be lucky to hear one howl ( The van guy was telling us how to properly perform a howl if we wanted them to howl back. which by the way seems only like a fun idea until your hiking in the pitch black silent forest of Manitoba for two hours) but to see one, on the first day, at the start of our hike :O ! and that's not even the best part. As we continued along the trail, for the next 10 minutes, the wolf would keep a safe distance with us. it would run ahead, stop, turn around and then slowly walk towards us, then repeat. The closest it came to us was about 35 feet, and then it just violently jerked back, as though it ran into an invisible barrier separating us. The wolf proceeded to go up around the bend, and when we came along it had already vanished, off into the wilderness, just as subtly as it had appeared in the first place.
take note of wolf in the middle
wolf seen right thereish
And naturally, i never brought my zoom lens. I was trying to save weight. i will have to decide next time - bins or zoom lens? Although it will forever be eating me away inside, it was a truly majestical experience which i will remember forever. And actually about 5 minutes after that, while we were still in awsomeness shock, a great gray owl spooked from the side of the trail and flew up into a tree around 100 yards away. That was my second sighting of the majestic bird. We just saw in the first 3km, two of our target sightings. An amazing start.
INTO THE DARKNESS
it was dark so this is the closest picture i have to one of us about to sh*t our pants
As i mentioned, we gave ourselves 3-4 hours to complete our 17 k before sundown, which would be good if we were trail running and not walking with 30lb packs on our backs, although our trekking poles do quite literally transform us into backpacking machines-1 part human-2 parts carbon fiber and titanium...and as i would later find out- rust...leki. Our various breaks and the wolf didn't help our time either. By the time we hit the 10k junction(see map just above) it was already dark. Hiking in the blackness is certainly a different experience. Our headlamps guided the way but there was constant back checking and what we were really looking for, and really hoping we wouldn't see, was glowing eyes.
It was just so quite. We couldn't hear a sound in the forest which made it more and less frightening at the same time. I mean, if its quite, at least we might hear the noise of a twig snapping before we have our heads in the jaws of a hungry cougar! but no really, and we know there were wolves in the area, and even though we know they never attack people and are perceived as way more evil and threatening than they are, i want you to think about how well you could reassure yourself about that if you were in our hikin'boots.
We came to an open marshy lake area and dean goes "man, i almost think the water is more scary than the woods, its so black!" and literally as if it were out of a horror movie, a deafening crack of thunder penetrates the evening forest air. Only it wasn't thunder but a beaver who thought he was a tough guy slapping his tail on the water and scaring us half to death. It was just so loud. We looked out onto the water and watched a single glowing eye of the beaver, coasting along and patrolling his waters. We moved on talking about the potential of a beaver horror movie.
After a long enough time on the trail without getting attacked, you honestly do get less scared, realizing the odds of being mauled by a bear or stealth killed by a cougar are quite low. Conserving our batteries, we set our lights to dim, giving us just enough light to traverse the trail. We eventually made it to our camp at Gunn Lake Campsite E (see map above), made supper while some wolves howled off in the direction we came ( thank god they never howled when we were still on the trail. seriously). The tents were set up, and we were off to bed, ready for another day of adventure.
( their website) http://www.shuttlebugclearlake.com/index.html
no pictures of the night so here's one of the shuttle van
INTO THE MIST
In the morning, we woke up to a forest blanketed in a thick fog. It was all very surreal and it felt as though we were in a mystical forest from a movie. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. As enjoyable as the simple parts of the trip are, its those moments of pure surreality that are completely exhilarating- the moments we live for, and the ones to be remembered for years to come. After finally prompting Dean to get his caboose out of bed to see the strange world around us, it was time to get on with the duties of the day. We packed everything but our water filtration supplies.
Our hydration bladders have a capacity of two liters and it doesn't take long to drink most of that in a day. The actual Gunn Lake is about 100m from the campground area. I waited patiently for dean to put his pack on all adjusted and cinched before saying we had to come back through here anyways hahaha i'm so sneaky. After he took off his pack we hiked down and found a well that didn't work so we had to retrieve our water directly from the lake which was also looking fine and mystical. You couldn't even see the treeline on the other side. It wasn't Banff or even PA grade water but it was all we had and it tasted completely fine. We have an MSR pump action filter which produced clear water, but they do advise to boil your water at the park so we did that too (oddly after boiling the water it had a yellow tinge, so we filtered it again. overkill? maybe but we never got sick). It must have been a 40 minute process for each of us to get around a liter each. We went back up to camp, grabbed our bags and we were ready to roll.
a cool looking bearea
the bear bins, and yes i can fit in one
Today's hike was slightly longer than day one at around 17 or 18km. I don't think we actually left until about 1:00 which was still 2 hours better than the day before. Quick pack up is something we need to work on. We backtracked a km back to the main trail, although it was like seeing something entirely new in the daylight. We basically just hiked all day. Going from marsh to marsh, bearea to bearea. Talking, being loud, making stupid puns ( all mostly in fake chinese accent of course). We found that the make up of vegetation changed as we started to reach 30 km or so. The start had more aspen parkland and open marshy areas. Coniferous trees slowly overtook the aspens and there was longer lengths of trees before open areas. We didn't really see any stunning wildlife on that day. it's hard to top a wolf and great gray owl on the first day. But we did have lots of mischievous Whiskey Jacks (gray jays) hanging around the trail and lots of Ruffed Grouse around (32 counted by the end).
Whiskey Jack
ruffin it in the bush
We made it to the campsite with an hour or so of daylight left. This is campsite "F" or the Whitewater Lake campground. Its basically just in an open field. An informational display told us that it was used as a POW camp for Germans during world war II. Operational from 1943-1945. So the area is pretty rich in history. We set up camp, creating a circle with our tents and pick nick tables for optimal protection form things that go bump in the night. The well at this campsite fortunately does work, which saved us a step of filtering. The catch however is that it is a 200m walk of fear when you do this at night. And the reflective materials from tents and gear totally looked like a bunch of eyes as you walk back with your headlamp. We prepped water, ate supper, played some tunes off our phones and just enjoyed the solitude around the campfire.
no holes in our defense
camp "F" : tables, fire pits, well (works), firewood, outhouse, bear bins
snoozing
THINGS THAT HOOT IN THE NIGHT
It seems like no matter where i go camping. I can neversleep in. Mother nature starts her day before we do and shes always making noise. Not in a bad way but in a "i can hear a bird and i don't know what it is and it sounds so close" and theres no going back to bed until i can satisfy my curiosity. The first sound came at around 5am-
(not my video)
"who cooks for you" who cooks for yooouuu" said the BARRED OWL. I quickly turned on my phone and opened my ibird app. Listening to some calls i determined it was a barred owl. Pretty fricken cool! This was my first encounter with a barred owl. He stopped after a few minutes so i was lucky to wake up during this time. Too dark too look for him and it sounded kinda far anyways. Back to sleep now. A few hours later, there is some light out, and i hear a tapping noise right outside the tent. I opened up a slit in my fly and see no, not a woodpecker but in fact a curious whiskey jack jumping around on the pick nick table. Gotta love those gray jays (until they see a sleeping bag drying in the sun and poop on it). Back to bed for a bit.
the creek to cross
When we woke up for the day the elk were bugling. Well we have never heard an elk bugle before but were pretty sure that's what is was. So we thought we would go down to whitewater lake and try our luck. It turns out there is no official trail to the lake which by the way is about 1-2km away as the crow flies. But if you follow the trail past the well and stick to the left, you can follow a little game trail or something across a stream/creek and it will take you to the lake. Just make sure you have some navigational plan because the trail does kind of dissipate over time, and could be difficult to find again. We couldn't get all that close to the water because the shore is really just marsh. We found what we thought was a wolf kill site. There was a skeleton of an elk or some kind of ungulate (still some pinkish tissue) and all the grass around it was compressed. It was a shorter distance to hike that day but we still wanted to have light at the end so we headed back, packed up and hit the road.
MYSTERIOUS BALL OF FIRE IN THE SKY
10.7KM
basically just a big weasel
camp "J" : tables, fire pits, well (works), firewood, outhouse, bear bins
We got a visit from an old friend that morning. One we haven't seen in a while - the sun! The last two had been mostly cloudy so some rays were nice for a change. We kept on the trail. It was a shorter day than the last two. They were both around 17km and today was about 11km. Much easier. A couple of interesting creatures were spotted too. We were coming up on the first junction and down the right arm was a fisher, just standing up on the trail looking at us! An elusive creature of legend and park brochures. It never even crossed my mind that i might see one. We were both surprised to see each other. I promptly went after it with my camera, but it scurried off into the bush, never to be seen again. I returned back to the trail sign to give it another study, when we came across some other creatures- humans! Two people came riding by on bicycles- well not quite, they were electric motorized bikes, but they were a little older of folks so i'l cut them some slack.They were doing a day trip but if you wanted to go bikepacking this would be the trail to do it on. They also saw the fisher, and id bet they spooked it in our direction.
little does he know that he was burned in the evening campfire
We continued on to the third and final campsite. Camp "J" or Minnedosa River. There were ups and downs to this site. The well (functioning) is like a 20m walk from camp, and the wood is about 10. There is a very nice boardwalk too that goes through a marshy area. The cons are that most of the area where you can set up a tent is sloped, bumpy, and full of prickly weeds. We probably spent a half hour looking for suitable spots. And also the bathroom was sorta far away. But you cant have it all eh? We puttsd around camp. Set up tents, made fire, ate,ect. The usual nighttime routine. Took a picture with our buddy George Wang (or well, the next best thing) .We took advantage of that nearby well and speed boiled our water over the fire. Fuel was running rather low. Nice clear sky. beautiful for looking at the stars by the warm fire. You would never know we would wake up to rain.
THE TREK SCHOOL CURSE
we know the numbers don't add to 53km but there were side hikes
RM has a healthy population of NINJAS
We woke up to the distinct sound of raindrops hitting our rain flys. yes! I like to think that i have carried "The Trek School" curse of rain and bad weather (trek school was an outdoor school program from grade 11). Now that i think of it, im pretty sure i have never been on a backpacking trip without getting rained on at one point (snow temps don't count)so it wouldn't be a backpacking trip without some moisture. It was the hardest i have been rained on yet. Wanting to pack up without getting wet i was able to take down the tent body from the inside while leaving the rain fly still poled and attached to the tent footprint, creating an uber shelter for eating breakfast. We even managed to fit dean in there too! Oatmeal was for breakfast. My last two pieces of food. It was cutting it close this trip.
and epic it was
By the time we were ready to finish the rest of the pack up, the rain had mostly stopped. We picked up our soggy map and hit our last portion of the trail. The shortest day yet, for the last - 4 km. There was still the drive back to Regina after all.
It only took about an hour to get to the end. Our trip was moments away from being over. It felt like it was just yesterday that we were seeing wolves and hiking in the dark. We could see the trail sign at the end. Our ride was just up around the bend. With Mcdonalds already on the mind we put on "up around the bend" by Creedance Clearwater Revival for an epic finish.
IT AIN'T OVER TI'L ITS OVER
The trail was done, but we were hungry and it was time for some Mcdonalds. However the closest one is in Yorkton, which wasn't really where we needed to be headed. It was also past noon which meant no PANCAKES so we settled for A&W in Mellville. The drive back from a trip is rarely more fun than the drive to. I guess there is just a lot less to look forward too. But there's no play without work so it was back to the grind. We stepped foot in our homes and this adventure was officially over, but it doesn't take long for our minds to wander, dreaming and planning the next trip. It's been a while since grasslands...
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