North Rim - Day 1

Western Brook Pond to Gilley Pond

September 5, 2017

With a short one day weather window in the forecast, we bumped the start of the North Rim Traverse a day earlier to take advantage of it. When I called Bon Tours to reschedule the boat ride they told me that the noon hour tour was full but they had openned up a 10:00 tour if that was not too early for us. The earlier start, the better in my opinion... we will take it. We drove to Western Brook Pond after a snore filled night in the bunk room of a interesting hospital hostel located in Norris Point. We arrived early on a sunny day which made for a relaxing hike in to the boat launch, where we chatted with a couple from Tatamagouche N.S. After paying our fee we waited for the tour in line with those going for the sight seeing. On loading however, a guided day-hiking group was about to leave and offerred us a fast ride to the end of the pond. We accepted this gratefully, as it would get us on the trail about an additional 30 minutes earlier. The boat sped out down the pond, bouncing in the heavy chop. I spent most of the time standing in the bow, surfing the waves which was fun and exhilirating with fantastic scenery all around. The driver dumped us, a guide, and five clients off on a well built dock at the far end of the pond and we began our four day hike at 10:30 on this lovely morning. The guided group left first as we were getting ourselves ready, but shortly thereafter we passed them and remained in the lead for the rest of the day. The hike through the gorge is now a maintained trail, which is quite a different experience than the last time I hiked this route thirteen years ago. We stopped for a break at a nice pond, where the guided group caught up to us for the last time, and after that we did not see them again until we had reached the top. As we began climbing, the trail actually became a little bit difficult to follow as numerous herd paths spider webbed through the area, causing us to get side tracked a few times. Once we followed a pretty good side trail, but then it took off on upwards in the wrong direction, so we abandonned this and bushwhacked a bit until we regained the maintained trail. Once the steep climbing began there really is only one way to go, so up and up we went until stopping for a brief lunch just before the waterfall. We continued climbing and just before breaking above the tree line we met another guided day group on their descent. We broke out onto the open slabs which made Katharina rejoice, and scamperred up these all the way to the top. We dropped our packs and climbed the last bit to the classic lookout where we relaxed in the sunshine, enjoyed the 5 star view down the Western Brook Pond valley, and took a celebratory swig of single malt. No Screech this time for me! The original guided party appeared far below us at the base of the slabs, took in the view from there and then returned on their way down. We waved from up on our perch, but I do not know if they saw us or not. We returned to our packs and then followed a fairly well trodden path through the bog. At the first lake we took a side trip to take in another viewpoint. The view was fantastic, but getting there involved some dense tuckamore, Katja's first experience with this, and she was not pleased. The view at the top of the sheer 500m cliffs were worth it though, and we managed to find an easier route back by a shallow ford across a stream. The last two kilometers of bog walk was slow due to some rugged terrain, but it sped up after Katharina fell in a mudhole and began cursing. We arrived at this soggy campsite and set up in a howling wind. Cooking was tricky as everything not weighted down sufficiently threatenned to blow away, but we manage to eat a brief supper without losing anything. Darkness fell and we retired to the tent to get ourselves out of the gale.

Clean folk at the start of the hike.