Day 1: Aiming for The Grand View (Part 2)

Cute little red sign...yeah.

Not. So. Cute.

I guess the ax is for those who are just ready to kill themselves before going up Cardiac Hill after what they just climbed up already. Haha. Keep in mind we are at km 4 at this point and already exhausted. Or at least I was.

And here is the start. Doesn't look too bad does it? And it wasn't. Just a wee little slope. It was enough though when you're already tired. But hey, I KNEW what I was signing up for. Did I mention that Cardiac Hill is actually located on the map? It's on the maps drawn up by the Cabin Forestry Services of course (the company who got the trail good to go about ten years ago)...the Okanagan Valley map (you know, the old fashioned paper styled ones  - the ones that you can never re-fold the proper way...remember back in the 80s? Parents were cursing at the damned things.) So yeah, one of THOSE...great big map...takes up a huge amount of land...itty bitty High Rim Trail complete with a spot for Cardiac Hill. I thought that was totally cool by the way. I mean, it's just a backcountry hiking trail for crying out loud!!

So...Cardiac Hill. Does it live up to its name? Well...I don't know. I think the buildup is way more difficult. The actual "hill" itself is just hard because you're so damned tired and you're stupidly carrying 60 pounds of weight...oh and let's see, you're not eating any food because you packed incorrectly. Seriously, I didn't find it that bad. Sorry for all of the buildup in the last blog entry. It just wasn't all that tricky.

***see edit at end of this blog entry***

I will say though, that it wasn't easy either. Near the beginning, the trail takes a very sharp right turn. Picture me with 60 pounds, exhausted, sweating so hard that my hair is soaked to the tips and needing to step up on the trail in a way that I wouldn't fall backwards (which by the way would have been bad. Very very bad.). Picture what I'm scaling as having no level quality to it at all, no tree to hold onto in order to keep balancing everything. Just a few feet of a sudden incline that I had to get up in order to continue. What would you do?

I'll tell you what I did. I got on my damned hands and knees and crawled up that little spot. No need to risk anything. At this point I really didn't know what  the heck my body was going to do. Would it give out or what? Would I lose my balance? Would I slip on that little bit of dirt? At this point I'm starting to question my ability to do ANYTHING. So yeah, I crawled up it a little. Did that a few times I think.

Do you remember how the twisting and turning up the mountain earlier in my day? Same thing. But the turns were sharper. I don't remember there being as many either. I remember Cardiac Hill being of short duration. When I got to the top, I was like...oh, that's it? Ok good. Note to self, killing yourself through hard exercise happens at the beginning haha.

Lots of pleasant areas after the hill. Marshy kinda areas. Actually lots of spots that reminded me of rainforests from pictures I've seen. LOTS of Devil's Claw. Lots of beautiful flowers. I'll make an entry for those on another day.

The trail eventually opens up to a beautiful open-like-orchardy kinda area. A little bit of overgrowth in the middle of what looks like a vehicle may have made at one time. I'm tired but I must keep going. It's really funny. You are just exhausted, you've been at it for roughly four hours and you need to stop but you can't. You know it will be more work to get started again. You haven't hit 5 km yet and you need to go 15 to get to that beautiful campsite. At 5 km I decided that I would stop when the time was right. And there you go, right after the 5 km sign, a nice little fire pit and two plastic lawn chairs.

Huh??? Plastic chairs? Haha. I'm not complaining. I'll take it. But who lugged those bad boys in that far either way anyway? Ah, a true break. Bugs are bad. Oh did I mention bugs yet? Ugh. Maybe later. Anyway, they were bad. Another reason to keep moving. 

A hummingbird took a huge interest in me, kept doing his thing and keeping an eye on me. Or maybe he just didn't trust me. I don't care, it felt magical anyway. 

So off I go again. Lots of different types of trails. Forested with well trodden paths, sometimes not so much. Some sun, some rain. Some bush, some not. Bugs!!! Seeing clearings where people are creative with wood, leaving behind heavy pots and pans. You could practically have whole kitchens stocked here. Except...I wouldn't use those dishes, mmm mmmmmm. I'm thinking that these are spots that people camped for the night depending on which way they came from. I had a little bit of a get lost experience shortly after this. Nothing really exciting to say about it except that I had to back track again. And, let me tell you folks...back tracking when you're this tired just ain't fun. Each step is starting to hurt at this point. I'm complaining, yes I know...but I think I'm starting to be justified in my whines. So bring on the freaking cheese!

I can hear bikes or ATVs or something in the distance. So someone somewhere is having just as much fun as I am.

I find the trail again, it's bush time folks. Did I mention the bugs yet? I mean they were horrendous. I've experienced bugs in bad ways too. I'm from Ontario. The mosquitos back there are as big as my nose. And the horse flies, the deer flies. I know all about bugs. The mosquitos are bad out here. I am spraying my entire body with Muskol on a regular basis. It's rough. So you keep moving as much as you possibly can. Taking pictures nearly killed me half the time because they were swarming me and I'm not exaggerating.

Oh.

Lovely.

A ladder made just for hikers to get over the barbed wire fence. Why is this fence here then? If we are allowed over it...why not remove it? *shrug*

Neato isn't it? Except...I've seen this sucker in pictures online before. So it's pretty old. I didn't trust it as far as I could...well you know...I tested out the rungs and the handles...Nope. I almost don't even trust it with my regular body weight. Not that I'm a low weight, but still!

So, as much as I try not to take the damned pack off me, I have to take it off because there is no freaking way I'm wearing it going over this sucker. Remember how much pain I'm in. Remember I'm starting to question balancing issues. Heck, pulling myself up the rungs packless was something in itself. I slid the pack underneath the fence and then got myself all nice and comfy again to move on.

More bush. More logging road action. You'd think the bugs would be easier to deal with out of the forest right? WRONG! They swarmed me almost as bad. And let me tell you this part of the trail they were BAD.  So I'm guessing again with this logging road I'm on and I guessed correctly. The thing you have to be so careful with is not missing the next bushy entrance.

I'm starting to forget now when exactly certain things were happening. I was thrilled to see the sign above, as I made it to my first checkpoint: Goudie Road and I THINK I'm at the 9.5 km mark. By this point I don't know I'll physically make it to 15. 6 km is not very far. It really isn't. But you feel differently about it at this point.

I think I'm remembering the following info in the right order...I lost my bug net on Goudie. I can't remember if I dropped it knowingly or not. I was that tired. I think I travelled down that road a while, came across a water source that I ignored for some strange reason...I think I didn't need much if any...I remember going into more bush, really thick bush, thick with bugs too...I remember going along what I think is an ATV trail...a marker for the trail with reference to the Grand View. More bush. then I come out to an area where you can hear frogs. I think there is supposed to be 3 ponds in this area. Old logging road area I think???? See,  I can't even remember. All the more excuse to do this all again right? And next I come to the actual "Frog Pond."

Yeah, I'm not smiling anymore. I'm at km 13 and I'm considering setting up camp at this point. Nice open area. I took a video of myself talking about the day. I had been sitting for 5 minutes or so and I'm still huffing and puffing on film. I'm still swatting bugs. I'm itching something awful. More Muskol please!

Just two more km. I got this right? I'm really not sure. You really have to play games on your own brain. I'm serious. Let's just see what is beyond that bend. Let's see what happens at the next km. Let's see how I am in half an hour. I can set camp then. I can set camp then. I can set camp then.

I eventually get to an area where there's no clearings so I'm forced to keep going. walking along side a barbed wire fence. It has fallen in some areas. Deer? Moose? Bears? Let's try not to think about it shall we? Fence along the left, lovely path in front of me. I'm barely moving. Every movement makes me feel like my body is being ripped apart. And I was ready for this too! But the closer I got, the more determined I was.

I descended a little bit...kinda like a ditch type descent. I THINK I walked over a little bridge over a stagnant pool of water. Stagnant, yes. Yellow, yes. But I have two empty bottles. You fill up when you can. I'm serious. There are very few water sources. You take what you can get. So I filled up my two bottles ready for treatment. And this batch of water would need a sieve (thank Heavens I thought to bring a tiny little hand sieve made of plastic. This will just be my cooking water. *shudder*

I climb up double what I climbed down to come up to another logging road. Looking across the road...

Is that a sign up there?

OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!

A little bit of climbing (grumble) and there it is there it is there it is!!!!!!!!

Okanagan Lake towards Penticton

Wonderful fire pit, overlooking Kelowna and I can see Black Mountain "from the other side."

Happy Nat

Don't ask me how difficult it was to pitch an easy to pitch tent after all that. I assure you, it was difficult enough!

I was so hot. I couldn't cool down. A huge wind would gust about from time to time and it would feel so good. But I suffered. I was hurting physically. I was feeling a little bit nauseated. Every bit of food I ate made me want to throw up. No way was I cooking tonight. I wanted nothing to do with that. Cleaning out a pot? Nope. So I brought out all of the food I was supposed to be eating earlier and tried to eat what I could from that. I basically forced down what I could. 

I texted my husband to let him know all was well.

Him: "How was it?"

Me: "It was hell on earth!"

I found out then that as of noon there is a fire ban. Oh well I'm too hot anyway.

All of a sudden, I hear some trail activity.  Some sticks breaking. I start to sing to scare off any wildlife. Too quiet to be anything dangerous but I still sang. The response was a human making a rawr sound lol. People!! Young couple with a baby who live around here and helping to make the trail useable. Little did I know how important these people actually are. More on that later. 

Found out that the man is the one who created a High Rim Trail clean up group on hiking addiction's Facebook page. Small world. They were out and about doing a little bit of cleaning up of the trail of deadfall that makes it difficult. I told them about my bug net, how I cried a little when it sunk in that I made it here and he shared where I might have my work cut out for me tomorrow.

I was in bed by 8:00 PM. I had a book. No energy. I couldn't eat. I rested and looked at my view as long as I could before going to bed. No clothes. I was too freaking hot. Didn't unroll my sleeping bag. Couldn't sleep. Took Advil for my aches (mainly my feet). That did the trick.

I woke up at 2 AM and couldn't sleep for about an hour. Looked out my "window" and here's what I saw.

NOW it is chilly and i could finally get proper clothing on and get into my sleeping bag.

For the pics, forgive the pixilation, I was too lazy to get out of the tent with my phone to get a better picture, so net window view is what ya'll get. I DID have the energy to go to the "Little Wild Room" but pictures, at this point I didn't care anymore. Headlamps are awesome by the way!

Good night, Kelowna!

EDIT: I've been informed (as has crossed my mind) that the pre-climbing I did is actually Cardiac Hill itself, regardless of what the map says and the sign location. Makes sooooooooo much more sense haha. Either way, it really was hell on earth. Would I do it again? Hell yes. Trying to figure out when I can...hoping this summer, and/or October. Crossing my fingers!!