From Alltrails (https://www.alltrails.com/trail/canada/newfoundland-and-labrador/the-long-range-traverse):
The Long Range Traverse is a 22.4 mile point-to-point trail located near Sallys Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada that features a lake. The trail is rated as difficult and is primarily used for hiking, camping, and backpacking.
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/canada/newfoundland-and-labrador/the-long-range-traverse
This was quite the first backpacking trip to go on. It was awesome. The trail:
Location (Google Maps): https://goo.gl/maps/PFTf83xW2snabjWq8
The trip was from July 18-24, 2019. After a day of travel we stayed at a large ski resort type place which had many rooms. The second day we geared up and visited the nature center to be briefed on the trail. The second night we camped at a KOA campground and had some fun divvying up and organizing who was carrying what food and equipment.
In the morning we headed for the ferry launch. We had a scare trying to round up enough cash on hand due to a risk that the credit card machines might not have been working since electricity is often out at the ferry launch. We ended up fine though! It was a short hike just to get to where the ferry took off. We waited a couple hours to be ready to board.
The ride down the gorge was chilly and beautiful.
The boat dropped us off and we were on our way. The hike up the gorge started flat then got steeper and steeper. There was a cool waterfall on the way up and we stopped for a snack. Here we passed several day hikers who were just doing this part of the trail and then turning back around to go back down the gorge.
Upon arriving at the top of the gorge we were rewarded with an awesome view back where we had come from.
From this point on we only ran into two other humans on the trail (briefly). Most of the trail was boggy and there were some interesting sections to navigate. There isn’t a marked trail for most of the way. Good boots are a must and hiking poles were very important. Unfortunately I broke one pole when falling on a steep snow bank.
There were a few places we had no choice but to cross on a snow bank that ramped down dozens of meters down into a lake. This was the scariest part of the trip for me. I didn’t want to slip and slide all the way down the snow into a lake of super cold water!
One day we had fairly thick fog and were hiking without being able to see very far where we were going. At one point we were on a snow bank without being able to see where we came from, where we were going or anything to our sides but snow and fog!
There were some designated camp sites as well as pit toilets!
We took turns cooking meals and pumping water.
We camped in the wilderness for 3 nights. The last night was closer to the South end and we saw other people setting up camp there as well. On our fourth morning we hiked out and had some rocky terrain and a lot of descending back to civilization!
