grey owl

i had cascading gear failures at the beginning. originally the attempt was going to be - day 1, grey owl, camp at northend, day 2, return. and shit, that would have been easy, but the strap on my tent bag broke. with hindsight, i could have bagged it in a garbage bag and attached it to my pack with bungie cords. but it was a shitty, heavy tent anyway. my final pack weight was, i think, just under 40lbs. i keep thinking it was over 40lbs, but i test rigged my pack again after and it was like 36lbs without extra water for my dog, so. anyway, that would have been doable, but also not optimal. my sleeping bag was a real bitch, too. i have no ultralight kit, other than an older camp pad. you think to yourself, walking, it's the cheapest hobby. it's cheap til you decide you want to sleep 15km away from your car. then you're fucked.

i was really pissed off about the gear failure, so that night, i decided i was going to go anyway, and leave my dog at home. my dog's fit, but anything over 20km in a day seemed mean to do to a dog, especially since it was supposed to hit over 25C. i was on the trail at 7AM, after a nice drive to waskesiu, then down the kingsmere road. there was nobody on kingsmere at that point in the morning. tons of wapiti wapiti wapiti. i said hello every time, because it's good manners when you're in someone's house to greet them.

i parked in the lot. there were lots of people parked. i wonder if there were a few boaters on the different lakes? i ended up seeing 5 groups of people, but only on the way back. but that's getting ahead of myself. i got on the trail while it was still that misty morning light. it was damp, probably about 10C. i was in cargos and a long sleeve shirt and a tanktop. two pairs of socks, my regular runners, a shitty backpack with a book and snacks i couldn't eat and a lifestraw and bugspray and first aid shit and a flashlight. no bra, don't be fucking weird about it, just, how the fuck are you going to wear a fucking bra on a big sweaty walk? carabined bear spray and an air horn to my belt loop; clipped a knife on too.

so i was cold, in the beginning, in my long sleeves and my cargos. the bugs weren't too bad, it's that shoulder summer fall season, but they were there. i sprayed up good at the beginning and ended up reapplying 3 more times. i was cold, and i was scared shitless. there have been a couple separate black bear fatalities in saskatchewan this year, and besides that, i've also heard a bunch of people disastercizing on bears. the trail felt quiet. within 5 minutes, i'd come on bear scat. very quickly i was saying "hi bear" and "i taste really bad" on every blind corner. put on some downloaded podcasts and tried to calm my mind.

i saw a fox skitter away pretty shortly on the trail. the kingsmere stream's rapids echoed off the trees. it was early, and the birds had a lot to say. a boreal chickadee examined me closely. pileated woodpeckers laughed at me, which was rude, because i was still so scared of bears. ruffed grouse stiffened in the underbrush, blending in with deadfall (but not to me because im an apex predator). i felt a little more comfortable.

i still kept up running commentary, though. "hello, hello, i'm just here for a visit. i won't stick around long. i won't leave a trace. and i taste bad, okay, and i'm sharp, and spikey, and you wouldn't like me anyway."

my shoes got wet in a boggy swampy part of the trail maybe 2km in. the air had smelled crisp, but around here it started to get - heavy, is the best word i have right now. the moisture in the air. the temperature was beginning to rise. there were very few clouds in the sky. the air was heavy.

energy has never been my concern. one foot then the other foot, that's been easy. i clipped through to the first campground, westwind, in wet shoes. it was empty, as you'd expect. the solitude of the trail was comfortable to me, but still strange. even walking on the open lakeshore felt isolated. i felt small. the bridges over water were a nice reminder that other people had been here, were here right now, that the trail was safe. of course it was, this is one of the most traversed long trails in saskatchewan. all the same, the podcast stayed on til i hit chipewyan.

chipewyan had a beach, a tent, no signs of anyone. maybe they were sleeping in there, maybe they were somewhere else on the trail, maybe they were on a boat. i took a quick sit to slug water out of the lake with my lifestraw (tm). the filter clearly works well, because i used it quite a bit and am pretty sure i'm not dying of naegleria fowleri nor dysentary. you don't get an especially large amount of water for the effort it takes, but i don't think you can beat the pack weight. ate a couple squares of my aero tiramisu bar and an apple. i haven't been able to eat much, lately. it's an anxiety thing. no energy in the gym, which sucks, my gains are stagnant, but damn, maybe i'll shred to under 150.

kept walking. one thing about this trail, about any forest trail - there might not be a lot of elevation gain, but there's still some, and the roots across the trail can really help or hinder you. right now, it was a help. built in steps. very shortly after chipewyan, things shifted for me. turned a corner. on the trail, faced away, was a grey brown blob. a rabbit - no, it definitely wasn't, because it lengthened quickly into something bigger than my dog, stretched out into a cat with no tail. we looked at each other, wide eyed, for a breath, for a little longer, and then she ran down the trail and into the brush. i had to take a breath, think about it - was it a cougar? no, stupid, cougars don't live up here, and they're bigger, and the cougar would have probably charged me. no, this was a smaller cat. a canadian lynx in her summer coat. a rare as hell sight by all accounts.

funny thing, after seeing a little predator, after seeing her run from me, after thinking about who was on this trail with me, after thinking about the nature of animals and the nature of me - i was less scared. the podcast went off. i kept talking, but less. i felt a little more - seen, a little more - accepted, here. which is weird, right? which is magical thinking, right? but that's fine. i know what i felt. i know what i know.

kept walking. sandy beach was another 6km down the trail, the same length again as what i'd just walked to chipewyan. somehow, in the silence, it felt shorter. more grouse, again, but the birds were quieter. it was hot, it was gaining mid-morning, and the critters were conserving their energy. i drank out of the streams when i hit them, which i really wish someone would have seen and taken a picture of, because i probably looked psychotic. look, i trust this lifestraw, but i did also buy a camelback after this trip. i was fucking thirssssttttttyyyyyy man. i was taking pictures, a little bit, here and there, but my phone's old, and even at max battery savings, she was warm, and dying fast. i think it was in between chipewyan and sandy beach where i went down a kind of nasty incline, and thought, fuck, my feet are a little sore, this is going to be a bitch on the way back, isn't it.

sandy beach was nice. my feet hurt. i ate a peanut butter sandwich. i didn't realize, until i hit the signs, until i sat on the beach with my sandwich, that i hadn't stressed, that my brain was empty, that i was alone alone alone, that it was alright. that it was right. i'd felt this before, on shorter walks, alone. i'd felt this before, when i explored toronto for a day with my headphones jammed in, on foot, talking to almost no one, seeing the world work around me. i think i'm an animal made for solitude, i think i'm an animal meant to leave and go and come home.

i laid down, head on my pack. read a bit of cat's cradle. brought it because it was familiar, comfortable, funny. my stomach hurt from the sandwich, which was weird. i ate a kiwi. my appetite's a bit smaller than it used to be, which is probably for the best. well, it makes sense. i starved all last summer, i starved all april, and now i'm doing it again. is this pathological? i don't think so, because i know why it happened. maybe 2027 will be the year i have abs. i drank as much as i could stand, at the beach, watched a bald eagle fly out of the brush 10 feet away. felt the air from the slap of his wings.

i kept going. i pulled my phone out to take a picture. it overheated and turned off. it wasn't quite lunch time - close - but it was fucking hot. i was sweating pretty hard, now. i wasn't tired, yet, but it was hot, and my feet hurt. i saw bear scat, smelled some kind of animal musk. this wasn't the first time, but it was strongest here. clambered over some deadfall, but it was harder than it had been. i was just, just now beginning to feel it, which made me proud of my body. i kept moving. it was quiet, it was silent, it was insect noises, that hot summer hum, it was trees creaking, it was water and maybe a raven.

and my feet were actually sore. stupid me, two pairs of socks and some regular nikes that my boss's wife bought me for christmas - that i'd worn in over the year - they're good, but they're not that good. northend came quicker yet than sandy beach. i saw the sign, and said fuck it, and turned back. and for a solid four km back, i was mad. mad and not mad, because - look at the map - think about how close i was - but i knew it was going to be bad. i should have turned back at sandy. i could feel the slip and pull of blisters. i had 16km to go back from northend. adding another 6km? dicey. and part of me, a part of me that was admittedly a lot quieter now - a part of me was scared that i would get stuck in the dark. i think i could have made it, now. with better shoes, or preventative tape. but i made the call.

it was a good call, in the end. i slipped into sandy beach, drank the lake water, and kept going, and popped a blister probably middle of the trail. my steps started getting uneven. i bit it, not too bad, a couple times, including on the incline. the roots became a hindrance. i sat down, and took off my socks. shit was fucked. i had moleskine, and i should have put it on a lot earlier, but i taped up about half my toes right there in the middle of the trail. funny thing about everything after sandy beach? it had to have been after noon (my phone was dead, so lol idk) and i started seeing other hikers. saw a couple, they gave me props after they asked and i told them where i was coming back from, said i was a beast. saw two jacked dudes and a gal with full kit, they were psyched to hear about the lynx. every time i heard someone on the trail, my pathetic pride made me walk normally. i have the aspect of a wild animal in that if i'm injured, i will hide the fuck out of it. i will never be injured in front of another person. i can literally not think of anything more embarrassing. let me break to trauma dump - when i'd get hurt as a kid my parents would cry and carry on. this culminated in me breaking my arm catastrophically the summer before grade 12, and my dad, the day after i came home from surgery, sitting on the edge of my bed and bawling apologies to me about it, while i awkwardly tried to comfort him. hilarious, in retrospect, and also explains everything.

i hit chipewyan. a really nice guy was paused there. he told me he was proud of me. he talked about his experiences on the trail. he told me i could have made it. he complimented my pace. he went down to the beach to, i think, rawdog fill his camelback with lakewater. i wasn't that hardcore. i kept going, and waited until i was down the trail and farther away from another human to start limping again. my pace had been fast before, but i was flagging hard. it was quiet, hot. there were breaks in the tree cover where i could feel the sun burning my skin. i'd sweat the sunscreen off. my feet hurt. my feet hurt pretty fucking bad. i toed roots, i ate shit. i was thirsty. i was proud. i was disappointed.

the birds were still quiet, but i saw a black backed woodpecker, i think. saw a downy woodpecker. heard warblers, but good luck seeing the fuckers. my ID skills on calls need work. there were other small ground birds. i saw a dead mouse on the trail, smelled decay that was either rotting vegetation or rotting carcass - not a crazy thing to smell. i heard rustling and saw nothing. i heard ravens and crows, heard gulls, heard loon calls when the trail bucked closer to the shore. my brain was empty. i saw a single guy, another couple. it seemed late, to me, to be getting started? but maybe they were making the trail last. fair enough.

my feet fucking hurt. at westwind, with 3km to go, i couldn't do it. i sat down at the public picnic table, hoping no one would come by, used an alcohol wipe on my knife, and popped about 10 blisters. wrapped my feet up again, and kept going.

when i hit the river rapids, i said, "thanks for letting me in, thanks for letting me leave. i'll be back, okay?"

in the township, around 4PM, i got a $7 iced tea. it was pretty good. i sat in my car, and drank it, and laughed, and my feet hurt, and there were hundreds of millions of yuppies walking around with done hair and makeup and shoes that cost more than everything on my body, and i was dirty and greasy and sweaty and happy. and i drove home. and in a couple weeks, i'll do it for real.