Frontenac Hiking Trip

Frontenac Hiking Trip

During three days in Frontenac Provincial Park, I learned more about the outdoors and how to enjoy it more than any other time this year in Outdoor Ed. Having plenty of food, a few mishaps but an overall excellent trip made for a very relaxing and enjoyable trip. I have never gone camping before, and as a first experience, it had a very positive impact on me, and encouraged me to go on more trips like this one in the future. Each day when we stopped, everything ran smoothly, because we worked well as a team and also had everybody doing something, which I think made it more enjoyable for everyone.

On the first day of the trip, we began with approximately a fifteen kilometer hike through a very nice part of Frontenac Park. Since it was a little cooler, there were next to no bugs, which made hiking very easy and enjoyable. Also, as we were passing through, we saw how as winter had ended everything was coming back, such as trees growing buds and animals coming out of hibernation. In a few spots we saw frogs, and while we were at our campsite, a beaver was working to build something in the water less than a hundred meters away. These little things that I saw made the trip even better each day. On the first night, we had hamburgers that we cooked before coming, with cheese and other toppings. The while we sat around a bonfire, we cooked s'mores and had a very good time. We talked and laughed, and shared stories together. This sort of experience made the trip really fun, since we had a lot of fun as a group.

On the second day, it was a beautiful, sunny day which allowed our hike to be absolutely amazing, since the lookout that we stopped at had a great view, and the sun reflected off the water to make it even more stunning. Then, as we got to our campsite, Jacob wasn't feeling well, so we set up the tent and he fell asleep in hopes that the issue would go away. That night, we had pasta for dinner which wasn't very good in my opinion. We didn't have a strainer to rinse the noodles so they were very wet and not very appetizing. However, I suppose they were enough because I felt full afterwards, and was able to hike the next day with no problems. Sine the food wasn't very good, we also ate instant oatmeal with it, so we had enough to fill us up and had something that tasted good. I was a little disappointed that night also because we didn't work as well as a group the way we had the first night, so everything didn't run as smoothly as before. However, everything got done and I think that it was done well enough. We had another fire, but it wasn't the same as the night before, but we played manhunt in the forest as well This din't last long though, because Kailee re-injured her knee and we didn't want to risk hurting ourselves in the woods. Luckily it wasn't a horrible injury and she was able to stay for the rest of the trip.

On the final day of the trip, we woke up early and ate a great breakfast of sausages, waffles and some other snacks. this was good because we were able to fill up our stomachs for the hike, which turned out to be not very long. Jacob was feeling better, so he was able to hike and feel good, but we made sure he had plenty of water so he didn't get dehydrated. We stopped at one final lookout on the way to the bus, which was a nice spot to rest, since there wasn't much to look at. As we got to the bus, we saw that the next class hadn't arrived, and we were able to organize all the gear so that the other class could pack and leave quickly. When they got there, I took some time to help Thomas and Andrew with their packs, and gave them a few tips from what I had learned to keep the pack comfortable throughout the trip. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this trip, and I would definitely do it again. If I was going to change anything, it would be to bring a bigger bottle, because I found that the two water bottles I had were not big enough to hold enough water for the entire day. This made it a little annoying since I would run out of water about an hour before getting to camp. Also, I would try to distribute more things in the group more evenly. I had a lot of bulky items, so I wasn't able to carry some of the loose items, such as the tent fly. I think it would have made the trip better if some of the loose items were shared, because some people carried the loose items more than others. Since my pack had bulky items, it became difficult to fit things in properly. Even with these little issues, I would definitely do this trip again without any hesitation.