To the Middle of Nowhere and Back Again

I have a new "Most Painful" adventure it seems! Earlier this month what started out as a taunt, turned into a full blown event and days worth of geocaching. A few of my ribs had been broken about a month earlier by a nasty fall, so I had been less then active in recent weeks, so I was quite excited to get a nasty cache like On a Wing and a Prayer" off my list of most wanted.

There were about 20 or so of us that arrived for the early morning start. We wanted to be ready to go at the trailhead by sunrise because it would take quite a while to get out to the middle of nowhere and back again. Everyone seemed to be dressed appropriatly for the nasty weather that was in the air. Winter had greeted us with avengance! Cold bitter air, but at least visability was good.


25km Hike with no roads in sight

About 9 km in I made a stupid decision.. That is why everyone brings me along anyways - for the comic relief! Instead of following the trail that was heading away from the cache, I would take the bush wacking route for the next 2 kilometers or so. It was great, I was making good progress until I hit a lake. I walked around the lake thinking that it would end, but it never seemed to. I saw a spot in the lake where it narrowed to about 10 meters, and decided to risk going out on the ice.


An old mini bus on the way

Well here is the part where I almost die. Ice buckles, and I go in. For a 10 meter gap in a "seasonal" lake, the water was quite deep. Every muscle in my body instantly charlie-horsed and that was some pain for the record books. I managed to grab ahold of a nearby beaver lodge and pull myself to dry-dom, then radioed to my intelligent companions who decided instead to follow the trails. I assured them I was ok - but my shortcut had put me well ahead of them on the race to the cache site.


A Jack Russel needed a break
I eventually found the trail again, and met up with the front runners - a groups of insanely physically-fit military cachers who were keeping quite the pace. They were suprised to see me ahead of them. We got to the gorge and didn't quite know what to do from there. The gorge was far too steep to climb into in the current snowfall conditions. We peered over the gorge and saw the notorious "Bridge of Death" that had been described to us in previous logs, as well as taunts from other cachers who had already done the cache earlier. We made our way to the bridge of death, and radioed back to group that was behind us to follow a certain route that would take them on a far safer route around the gorge. We crossed the bridge, and the military group steamed ahead and started a fire.

By the time we got to the cache site, the fire was such a welcome sight that we all proceeded directly to it, and probably didnt get around to looking for the cache for a good 30 minutes. My clothes were like a suit of steel armour. Completely hardened to the point that I could hit them with my first, and it would hurt my fist. I really enjoyed that fire, we were really good friends..


smoke in the eyes
We found the cache (it was quite easy, just sitting out in the open), and snuffed out the fire. The soles of my boots had melted (from standing pretty much right inside the fire for too long), but I didn't notice it. Right now my focus was on getting out of there in one piece. About halfway back was when my bones could not take any more of the lactic acid running through my veins. I needed to take a sit down break every hour or so to rest my weary hips and legs. There were people far better off then me, and people far worse off then me. I would like to say I was about average, but I think the fall through the ice had sapped my energy a little more then the rest of the group. I was hurting.

Eventually we started to see cabins, and snowmobilers again. Hurrah! Civilization! After about 25 kilometers of hiking, we made it back to the place we started, made sure everyone was accounted for and headed for the pub in Minden. The "Rockcliffe Tavern" is apparently world famous, but like many of the northland pubs - they turn into snowmobile pirate pubs during the winter. Alot of Rowdy men saying ARGHHHH! alot would best describe it. They also did not seem to want to turn on the heat in the place. Despite being outside all day, the place was freezing! It was nice to just sit down though. It wasn't the best pub night, as we were all quite tired, but we had a nice story to tell!