Training Log Archive: the kempster

We actually did it!!! Eric, my dad, and I ran up Gros Morne the highest mountain in the park. It's the same climb as Gros Mountain in Vancouver, but the big climb to the top was all rock. When we were doing the steady climb to the foot of the mountain at the beginning, the hikers that were coming down were giving us some pretty weird looks. Usually people take 7-8hrs to do it, and there we were, at 5:30pm, running. Pretty funny sight I must say. It was amazing up at the top! The sky was perfectly clear so we could see a really long way and we picked out all of the mountains around us on the map. We really flew on the way down so that we wouldn't get caught in the dark and it took us 55min. I did get a bit of trail rash, but that's the only injury that happened.

Hiked out from the beach instead of going all the way around the rest of the loop because we had another plan. It was a lot harder hiking out because it was all uphill!!! It was pretty tiring, but it was nothing like what we did afterwards. We had decided to hike to the top of the Tablelands (thankfully without our packs) even though there wasn't a trail. It was a big uphill hike, but what a view from the top. There was the ocean on one side, mountains in the distance on the other, and then the empty expanse of the Tablelands which was pretty cool. Too bad we can't tell Parks Canada about how nice it is up there because they might have the Parks Canada Police after us... ;-)

Hiked to the beach on the Green Gardens hike where we camped right on the beach with the surf roaring in our ears. It wasn't too bad with a packs because it was all downhill so we made pretty good time. I'd hate to have to run through this forest because it's like a wall, the trees are all short and stubby, but they're certainly are sturdy.