Day 8: Let's climb a Mountain
Today we stayed in Gros Morne National Park, so we didn't have to drive anywhere...yay
Gros Morne Mountain is the highest point in the national park at 800m, and takes about 4-8 hours to climb.
We arrived at the parking lot at the trail head by 10am, and started hiking up the first 4km uphill trail, while passing streams, and lakes. This led us to the base of the mountain and the more strenuous hike began.
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| Gros Morne Mountain from the approach |
The first 3/4 of the trail is located in a valley of the mountain and is mostly large, sharp rocks. It takes some delicate foot placement to prevent rolled ankles. Marg lead the way and she kept a good pace all the way to the top. The wind started to pick up as we climbed higher and we had to put on our jackets once we reached the top of the boulder field.
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| At the base of the mountain |
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| About 1/2 way up |
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| Lots of rocks |
The trail actually flattened out and changed a smoother terrain for the last 1/4 of the way to the summit. The views were fantastic, and totally worth the effort to get to the summit.
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| The route down...board walks along sensitive areas |
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| Small shelter at the summit blocks the strong wind |
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| Summit ! |
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| The best view |
The route down was around the back side, and much less steep terrain. We both preferred the uphill section as the downhill was hard on the knees.
We reached the parking lot by 3:30, so it took us around 5.5 hours to finish the climb.
Tomorrow we're off to St John's !
Wow, that looks pretty awesome!
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