EATING WELL
There are many options for eating
well on trail so no need to chew on twigs
and bark. Blueberry cobbler or pad
thai? No problem. There’s a huge selection of dehydrated meals, and some of
them taste pretty darn good. They come
in handy packs: just add boiling water
and eat out of the pack, so you don’t
have to clean your camp plate. A cheaper route is do-it-yourself backpacking
meals online. Coffee addicts rejoice:
Instant coffee packs well and comes in
single-serve packets. (Add half a pack of
hot chocolate and you’ve got a mocha.
My camping rule book says it’s totally OK
to eat chocolate, because you burn so
many calories each hiking day –
woohoo!)
A PERSONAL TALE
By Shannon Peddell
LET’S GO BACKPACKING, she said. It’ll be fun,
she said.
Backpacking is hiking and camping combined. You
carry all of your gear, hike to a location, set up camp,
sleep, get up, pack up, and repeat.
When my friend asked, I thought carrying heavy
camping gear for kilometres sounded downright miserable. I loved camping, and I loved hiking, but backpacking - a combo of the two - sounded like something only for the super-fit or unemployed.
So my friend recommended Wild: From Lost to
Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed.
And a strange thing happened. It made me want to
learn more. I researched everything about backpacking I could find, watched hours of YouTube videos,
learned about knots and woodcraft until I felt ready
for our first multi-day hiking adventure.
We wanted to start easy, so we planned about 100
kilometres of the Rideau Trail, nice and close to home.
I bought a sleeping bag, a cheap lightweight tent and
a few things to get by with before spending big bucks
on the good stuff. We planned and planned and finally
the day came when my husband dropped us off at our
starting point in Sydenham. We stayed our first night
in Frontenac Park, but the second day …
The trail was hard and took way longer than
planned. So we left the trail hoping to make up lost
time to the campground on a road. Bad idea. Blazing
heat, cars roaring past.
What we discovered was cheap tents leak, road
hiking sucks, and if it’s your first trip, whatever distance you think you’ll hike each day, cut that by a third.
But astonishingly after all of that, we didn’t quit.
Instead we planned a nine-day trip to Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail. The cause of this apparent
insanity was that after the Rideau Trail adventure was
over, we missed it. There was something to be said
for carrying everything that you need to survive in
the woods. You forget about material possessions,
work, commuting and the daily grind. You get to be
what human beings are meant to be. We are built to
move and we have the minds to survive.
In short, backpacking had made
me feel more alive than I have in
years. After that, every morning I
wake up planning to get back at it
again. Backpacking may not be for everyone, just as running, or camping, or
fishing isn’t for everyone, but if you are
even slightly intrigued by the idea, try it. It
can change your life.