Frontenac Park Hiking Trip

By: Sophia Li

This hiking trip was amazing! It was my very first hiking trip that I’ve experienced in my life. My group was very prepared and everyone had a pretty great mood. My group (Emily, Caylee, Emmy and Fatima) were a pretty amazing group to have. They all were very generous with how much they put in their packs and how well everyone participated in making and preparing the food; a very important key in the hiking trip. Even though one of our group members were injured, she still had a very good mood and made amazing food for the group, especially the stir-fry.

The first trip we made on Monday was the longest and hardest trip, it was about 15 km to the campsite that we were going to spend for the first night. I was surprised of how many rocks and roots were hiding in the trails because along the way, a lot of people tripped and almost fell because of these rocks and roots. We made a few stops to take a break and to be honest they were worth having because everyone was pretty tired. My group made it to campsite 12 with two other groups and the rest of the class went to campsite 9 which was another 10-15 minute walk. Our group started to prepare for the night, we divide and conquer. Emmy made dinner for the first night, Emily and Caylee collected firewood and Fatima and I was preparing the food bag and went to find a tree. Dinner was grilled cheese and hotdogs, grilled cheese was made and prepared by Emmy and the hotdogs were prepared by Fatima which was roasted on the campfire. After dinner, me, Emily, and Emmy went to put the food bag on the tree. Later we had a communal campfire that the other groups came to and we just talked and had a lot of fun just chatting. That night everyone went to bed pretty early; around 9 pm.

Tuesday came pretty early, everyone pretty much woke up around 6:30 am; really early. For breakfast our group had croissants with nutella and hashbrowns which was prepared by Emily. Afterwards our group packed up camp in less than 20 minutes which was pretty fast. We left campsite 12 at 9 am, and went to go to campsite 9 to meet up and walk to campsite 5 and 4. Tuesday’s weather was amazing but it was also really sunny. The second trip on tuesday was only 6 km which is not even half of what we did for our trip. We made it to campsite 5 in less than 3 hours. Campsite 5 has an amazing lookout which was absolutely amazing. My group didn’t have lunch because we weren’t hungry so we just ate our snacks and we were ready to continue to campsite 4. My group, Daniel’s group, Richard’s group and Emad’s group continued to campsite 4. Campsite 4 was a 45 minute walk and that campsite had an amazing view of the lake and clean river water. For dinner, we had stir-fry with rice which was prepared by Emmy and me and Caylee did an amazing job cooking it. Tuesday night everyone slept at 9 pm except I decided to stay up later to enjoy the lake view.

Wednesday, I woke up later than everyone else, I woke up at 7:30 am and I had oatmeal for breakfast and hashbrowns. Caylee injured her knee while playing man-hunt so she had a head start before the rest of the group.The other group met up with us around 9:30 am and together we set out to go to the parking lot. It was a 3 km to the parking lot, along the way we only took one stop to rest at a mini look out, not even but the view was beautiful. When we reached the parking lot, we waited for the next group to come so we could swap equipment for the next hiking trip that the other group is going on.

The things that I would improve on for this trip would have to be how I carry my pack because if you wear your pack wrong it will definitely have consequences. A pack is supposed to sick on your waist and not affect your shoulders that much but for me I was not really prepared so my pack for the monday was not well put on but for tuesday and wednesday I fixed the buckle so it didn’t hurt my shoulders at all. So I would definitely recommend people carry their packs properly so it could definitely benefit the person with the pack and it could ease off the pressure of the pack itself so it doesn’t need to be damaged.

The things that went really well was how we prepared our meals accordingly, the efficiency we had when setting up our things and tidying up our things, and how well we cooperated with other groups. This trip has honestly been such an amazing trip, there are tons of memories that were made there and a lot new friends that we bonded with over this hiking trip which makes unforgettable.