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The Climb
Newfoundland Links & Resources
There were several points along the way when I should have realized quite clearly that I had no business trying to climb Gros Morne Mountain in Newfoundland.
Like when a week before leaving for Newfoundland I posted the following to an online discussion board:
I leave for Newfoundland Thursday night.
And last night I finally received my copy of A Hiking Guide to the National Parks and Historic Sites of Newfoundland .
I have been planning to hike Gros Morne Mountain while I am there.
I even started training for it about, oh, a week and a half ago, by hiking in the Blue Hills, and I've made great progress, I haven't burst into tears on a rough ascent in four or five days now.
I read the trail directions for Gros Morne in my new book last night. It describes the hike as "grueling" - and this from someone who writes hiking books for a living - and has the following warning:
“Strong hikers only should undertake this trail. Choose a clear day for hiking, and carry a compass and a map as well as survival equipment.”
And well it occurs to me that after a week and a half of training I really can't be described as a "strong hiker" and I don't even know what “survival equipment” is, but I suspect they don't mean an extra sweatshirt and some trail mix.
Of course my electronic friends all tried to talk me out of it. And they didn’t even know that my training mountain, Great Blue Hill, just barely qualified as a hill according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At just over 600 feet it was only 100 feet taller than the cut off mark between a knoll and a hill and nowhere near the one thousand feet minimum needed to qualify as a mountain. And that I wasn’t kidding about the whole bursting into tears on a rough ascent thing. And is there really any such thing as a “rough ascent” on something barely taller than a knoll? And my only reason for even wanting to climb Gros Morne was stupid impulse and a rather pathetic susceptibility to marketing. Every piece of tourism literature from Newfoundland has a picture of Ten Mile Pond on it; it’s so consistent that it must be part of an elaborate branding scheme. The only way to see Ten Mile Pond is from the top of Gros Morne Mountain, as the pond itself is nestled in glacial valleys in the top of the Long Range Mountains. The pond is formed of water from where the glaciers melted, like last week - or fourteen million years ago, which in geological time is roughly the equivalent of last week. It didn’t even occur to me that, like the entire state of Maine, and most of Ireland, Norway and Alaska, Newfoundland is a promised land of mountains and valleys and lakes and fjords and that there was really no reason to risk life and limb climbing a nearly 3,000 foot mountain well beyond my capabilities simply to get a nice view. In fact, there isn’t a bad view anywhere on the entire island of Newfoundland, not even from the Corner Brook McDonalds.
My husband, Mike, and I packed up the car and headed north. We drove through the drowned coast of Maine and the Canadian Maritimes for nearly one thousand miles. We drove over and around and through huge mountains that were once bigger than the Rockies or the Himalayas, worn down by erosion to bare rock stubs and then crushed beneath approximately sixteen million tons of ice age glaciers that literally pushed the bedrock and mountains down towards the earth’s core. When the glaciers melted, the sea level rose and flooded or “drowned” what was left of the mountains, leaving bays that are several hundred feet deep, and tall pine forests and rocky mountain outcrops that slam straight against the ocean with no sandy beaches between them, and other tree studded rocky mountain tops sticking out of the water as islands. The land is still gradually, imperceptibly, rising back up now that the glacial weight is gone, and every once in a while it will rise enough to cut off a fjord from its outlet to the sea, turning it into an enormous lake.
Somewhere in Nova Scotia we passed a sign informing us that we were at the half way point between the North Pole and the Equator. It was startling to think that you could be at a point well north of the entire state of Maine, and still have half the northern hemisphere above you. At Sydney, Nova Scotia we boarded a ferry for the seven hour trip across the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Port Aux Basque, Newfoundland, a huge mountainous outcrop of some of the oldest rocks on earth and the point where the Appalachian Mountain chain ends in North America before picking up again in the highlands of the UK and going all the way up Europe’s coast to Sweden and into the arctic circle.
Newfoundland’s main tie to the rest of Canada is the small fleet of ferries that run from Sydney to Port Aux Basque on the west coast of the island two or three times a day, and from Sydney to St. John’s, the capitol city on the east coast of the island, a fourteen hour trip that runs three times a week. The ferry service is so vulnerable to hurricanes, fog, mechanical breakdowns and blockades mounted by fishing fleets protesting the severe government limits on the cod stocks, that multi-day delays are taken in stride, almost expected, by frequent travelers and don’t merit so much as an announcement by the staff. We paid our $150 fee for a car and two passengers at the toll booth at the entrance of the ferry terminal at 12:00 noon and the cashier neglected to mention that due to a disabled ferry they were currently running about 20 hours behind schedule. We finally boarded a ferry at midnight, we were lucky; there were other passengers who had been stranded on the dock since the day before. The ferry was five or six stories tall, had the car deck, a large cafeteria and bar, a couple of decks of small berths (that couldn’t be had for love or money at this point), and several decks full of lounges with large screens to show movies. As soon as the ferry pulled away from the dock the lights were set to dim, no movies were shown, and most of our fellow travelers, who had shuffled up to the lounges in sweat pants or jammies, many carrying pillows and quilts, ignored the announcements in French and English that sleeping on the floor was strictly prohibited and settled into comfy little nests in the aisles and under tables. Not being so well prepared Mike and I huddled shivering in a pair of airline like seats and dozed fitfully between being awoken by the many squalling babies and/or snoring other passengers.
We had given up on sleep by the time the ferry approached the island and were standing on the deck, wearing every article of clothing we could access to ward off the bitter chill rising from the iceberg laden Labrador current that snaked through the Saint Lawrence and surrounded the island, and watched the cliffs of Port Aux Basque emerging from a fog so dense that you could practically grab handfuls of it from the air and hold it cupped in your hands. The cliffs were sharp and dark in the predawn twilight and tiny little cottages clung precariously to the banks. We joined the lines of passengers descending to the car decks and carefully made our way off the ferry and drove into a sunrise of bright halos of sun rays breaking through clouds and fog and illuminating mountain peaks in the near distance.
We spent three days exploring the Port aux Port peninsula, doing lazy meandering hikes in the Lewis Hills and picnicking on thick turkey sandwiches and ice cold sodas with big thick coffee crisp candy bars for dessert. We explored The French Ancestor’s Route, a scenic drive around the peninsula that winds through old French fishing settlements where the few Acadians who escaped being shipped to Louisiana to become Cajuns during the Grand Derangement when Great Britain won Nova Scotia from France settled in with the French fisherman who had treaties giving them the right to fish on the western shore of the island. At night we drifted off to sleep to the sound of the waves rattling the pebbles on the beach below the cliff our hotel was perched on.
Thoroughly rested we then drove a few hours north to Gros Morne National Park where we had rented a cottage on Bonne Bay with Mike’s parents and some other friends of ours. I pointed at the mountain every time I saw it as we drove around the park and announced to anyone who was still listening “I’m going to climb that!”
Mike, who is in much better shape than I, was humoring me. He told everyone that he would see how far I made it before the whimpering and yelping retreat commenced. After a week of hiking, feasting and boat tours, time was running out. We only had two days left in the park, and the weather forecast called for the next day to be sunny and dry, and the following day to be rainy. If we were going to climb the mountain we had to do it the next day. Since it’s arduous and grueling and according to the guide takes seven or eight hours, it was only prudent to get an early start. So of course we sat up half the night talking and crawled out of bed at eight am very tired. Tired but determined.
Since there were bound to be commemorative photos of our victorious arrival at the summit, I chose my hiking wardrobe carefully, settling on my favorite sparkly embroidered tunic and a silver filigree ponytail holder to hold my hair back. Then I laced up my hiking boots and slapped my Hollywood glamor over-sized sunglasses on my face. Our friend, Kevin, who actually had experience mountain climbing, gave us a first aid kit and flashlight for our pack, which we promptly jettisoned due to weight. Instead we loaded up the pack with peanut butter sandwiches and water and cookies, extra sweatshirts and rain gear and headed out to the visitor center to pick up the complimentary trail map and warning lists of all the ways you can die on the mountain.
To get to the mountain you have to first hike a wooded trail that ascends nine hundred feet over the course of two and a half miles. It was a beautiful morning and we tramped confidently through the woods and up flight after flight of rough-hewn wood stairs.
The trail guide, the tour books, and just about anyone who knows anything about Gros Morne, recommends doing this first half as a half day hike with a picnic at the trail head to the mountain itself, admire the stunning views from nine hundred feet up, and leave the mountain itself to serious hikers. There is even a big sign at the trail head of the mountain warning you not to attempt the climb if:
· You are tired
· You have blisters
· You don’t have sturdy hiking boots
· You don’t have enough food and water
· You don’t have extra sweatshirts and rain gear
· the top is obscured by clouds
· there is not at least five or six hours of daylight left
It also warns you that the ascent is through The Gully “a steep climb up a scree slope of frost shattered rock” and that this section is one way only, you can go up it but cannot come back down because you will set off a rock slide and kill yourself or the people below you. It also warns you that the descent is even harder and more arduous than the ascent, which in my delusional state just struck me as silly; anyone who understands gravity knows going up is harder than coming down, right?
Since the sign did not specifically say “And also, if you are an over confident couch potato who has only been hiking for a week and a half and the hike into this trail head was longer and up a higher elevation than anything you have done so far TURN AROUND NOW AND DON’T EVEN TRY IT” so anyhow, clear beautiful day, summit visible, water, food and good hiking boots on board – we set off towards the shattered rock gully.
And here’s the thing, the Gully really didn’t look that bad, I really was confident that I could climb it with little difficulty. What I didn’t really get was that due to a little geographical optical illusion, what you could see of the Gully wasn’t in fact the Gully at all. It was sort of the on ramp to the Gully. It was only after about fifteen minutes of lung shattering, heart pounding, leg muscle screaming climbing, that you cleared that part and saw the whole actual really steep mountain ahead of you. And a word about this “frost shattered rock,” it is nasty and slippery and shifts under every step and sometimes your foot slides further back than where you started and its hard to keep your balance and the rocks themselves are very pointy and unfriendly to flesh if you should happen to slip and go down on one knee or flail desperately with your hands to break your fall. It’s as if the ancient glaciers scraped up every sharp pointy rock from the equator all the way north and deposited it on that final mountain top of the continent.
Predictably, it was when we got our first good look at the real climb ahead of us, coupled with the fact that we could not turn back, that I first panicked and burst into tears and told Mike there was no way I could climb this mountain, proving once again that when the chips are down I am definitely the last person you want in the foxhole with you. Since we couldn’t turn back due to the whole rock slide of death danger, Mike spent the next two hours coaxing me from one glacial erratic to the next, cutting through the panic when necessary, threatening to stick a bag over my head when hyperventilating set in and urging me to keep going as soon as I could breathe again. I would scurry like a monkey using both feet and hands to pull myself up the insanely steep, unstable slope from one large rock to the next. The last few hundred feet were so steep they were unreal, setting off fresh waves of despair and weeping.
There were a few groups of people who passed us on the way up. I noticed one woman resting as often as I, and another using my monkey gait of hands and feet to propel herself up, so I didn’t feel like a total loser, though I am reasonably certain I was the only one crying behind her over sized sunglasses. We finally made it to the top where the summit sign was and met all the groups that had passed us and we were all taking each other’s pictures and congratulating each other and basically naming babies after one another, when I suddenly began to feel quite sick to my stomach.
I wasn’t sure if it was just sheer exhaustion, or if the three (out of a total of four we had with us) liters of water I had drunk on the way up was enough to set off that condition that afflicts so many of us elite athletes, hyponatremia*. I was seriously woozy and sick to my stomach, so I crawled off to a scenic piece of tundra well away from the path, put my sweatshirt down on the low lying berry bushes to make a little bed, curled up in the fetal position, and sobbed like a baby for a little while.
Mike munched on peanut butter cookies and admired the view until I felt well enough to continue. I dragged myself back to my feet and we got back on the trail. We were now on the part described as “a sea of rock, known as felsenmeer to geologists. This makes for rough walking.” Ha, ha, bitter laugh ha. Rough doesn’t begin to describe this horrific sea of jagged pointy ankle breaking rocks. That went on for ever and ever. You know, looking at the mountain from a distance it had seemed so round and friendly, an old worn down Appalachian mountain with a smooth weathered dome of what I had assumed to be granite. I had not been expecting hours of tramping through this horrid scree or felsenmeer or what have you.
I was still a bit woozy, very tired and cranky, afraid to drink water in case it really was hyponatremia, and generally just a joy to be around. I didn’t even want to admire the view of Ten Mile Pond, nor did I want to gasp in awe at the herd of caribou just yards away from us, or chuckle at the antics of the flock of ptarmigan we encountered. I just wanted to get the hell off that mountain as fast as possible.
After what seemed like hours of trudging glumly through the felsenmeer I was delighted to come upon the steepest flight of stairs I have ever seen. We bounded joyously down the stairs sure that we were nearly done with our hell hike.
Maybe it’s the dashed hopes that make them say that the descent is worse than the ascent. We found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain, at the back of the mountain. To get back to the front of the mountain was a mind numbing, spirit crushing, ankle grinding, hope dashing ordeal of hiking for several more hours on an insanely narrow, slippery, rock strewn path that wound back up and down the mountain for mile after brutal mile. Sometimes you were inching around sheer drops with nothing but a few inches of gravel keeping you from falling to a certain death on the boulders hundreds of feet below. Sometimes you were sliding down slick muddy knee high rocks that made getting footing impossible. But be assured, once you got past the wonderful stairs, every single step of the mountain sucked beyond belief.
It was at some point during this descent that I remembered that there was a full bottle of diet coke in the fridge and a bottle of percocet in my toiletry bag back at the cottage. Reaching those precious items became the goal that got me off the mountain.
We were both beyond exhausted when we finally reached the trail head. We didn’t even want to think about the fact that we still had another two and a half miles to hike, and another nine hundred feet to descend, to reach our car. And we were out of water. And it was getting dark. And then I remembered that at the summit someone had mentioned seeing a mother bear and two cubs somewhere in the vicinity. I decided not to mention the bear to Mike because if we encountered it I was the obvious target. But I needn’t have worried about bears, we were in such rough shape the ptarmigan were eying us hungrily and the chipmunks were tying on their bibs sure we would be their breakfast.
We emerged briefly from the woods on a boardwalk through a swamp in time to see the sun set over Bonne Bay and then we plunged back into the trees and the deep dusk with me thinking “no bear, no bear, not going to meet a bear” obsessively while Mike saw, to his horror, that bats were flying down the path directly towards his head, playing a flying rat version of chicken with him, going straight for his face then pulling up abruptly and flying over his head when they were about a millimeter from his nose. It was a good thing that he was in the lead, and remembered the unfortunate incident that occurred the last time he and I had encountered bats in similar circumstances in the desert some years before when I plunged hysterically off the trail racing blindly through the sage brush while he called after me “No, stay on the trail! There are rattlesnakes and scorpions out there!” and he watched me run like the wind through the brush to the parking lot without my feet once touching the ground. Now, he was too tired to pull me out of the bog we were hiking through at the moment so he kept saying “Look at my feet, it’s dark and there are lots of roots here, don’t trip, look at my feet.” I fell for his ruse and dutifully stared at his feet and never once realized that there were bats hurtling straight at us with torpedo like precision.
Like Hansel and Gretel we continued pathetically through the woods dodging real bats and imaginary bears and every so often Mike would hopefully take the car keys from his pocket and click the little button that makes the lights blink and finally, far, far up ahead of us, we saw the orange glow of the tail lights reflecting off the trees.It was just nine pm when we crawled into the car, exactly twelve hours after we had set out.We drove back to the cottage where everyone was waiting for us, and really starting to worry since it was getting so dark. I was so tired I couldn’t even make it up the steep front steps of the cottage, I walked around to the back where it was only half a flight, stopped at the fridge and grabbed my diet coke, stopped at the bathroom and dumped my toiletry bag on the counter and pawed around for the bottle of percoset. I called out, “It was really great and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow!” and staggered into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed, peeled the boots from my screaming feet, downed a handful of pain killers and half a bottle of tonic and drifted off to sleep listening to Mike narrate the trip, with photos, in the next room. I could have sworn I heard him refer to me in my hiking outfit, the over sized sunglasses and sparkly beaded tunic, as “trying to haul Zsa Zsa Gabor up a mountain."
* Drinking an excessive amount of water can lead to over-hydration or hyponatremia which is an abnormally low concentration of sodium in the blood. The symptoms are: fatigue, lightheadedness, weakness, cramping, nausea, dizziness, headache, confusion, fainting, disorientation, seizures (severe cases), coma (severe cases) death (severe cases).
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