OXFAM 100km Trailwalker - Part 1

In 2011 I was surfing around of Facebook and noticed some pictures coming through from the OXFAM 100km Trailwalker event. I saw one of my buddies with his feet taped up, laying on his back with his feet rested against the side of a car. I was immediately intrigued. I clicked through some of the pictures and was excited to see that they were still in the middle of the event and that photos were coming in as they got to the checkpoints. I was amazed. 100 kilometres is something that I had never fathomed possible. First of all I have a love hate relationship with walking. In the city, it's probably one of my least favourite things to do. After experiencing the speed and fun of skateboarding, inline skating and cycling, walking is… slow… and boring. However up north, walking is sometimes a means to get somewhere that is not accessible by car. Walking usually means adventure, not something routine like going to the store to grab groceries. Also, walking in Toronto never really required me to go further than 2-3 kilometres at a time. So seeing pictures of my friend embarking on a 100km challenge was mind boggling. The furthest I had ever gone unassisted by a motor was about 65km on my bicycle when I rode to Canada's Wonderland and back. Being the sucker for punishment that I am, and after being glued to my computer so I could see all the updates from my buddy's walk, I knew I had to try this.

Moon River Falls

It took a while, but after a few debates, we decided on Moon River Falls for our Canada day long weekend destination. We had tossed around ideas ranging from the campgrounds in the Adirondacks, to Algonquin. In the end though, finding something close to Toronto and free pointed us in the direction of Crown Land. Matthias and I dropped off my wife, daughter and my good buddy Benson at our insertion point to the forest, and we went to Moon Basin Marina to park the car. When we met up and started hauling our gear into the forest three things became painfully apparent. The horse files and mosquitos were out in full force, lugging enough beer for a long weekend is very heavy, and it was hot… very hot.