Today, I spent the day tromping around the Fundy Trail Parkway provincial park with a 29lb backpack on a fairly humid day.  I was out with my son, a cousin-in-law and some of her children to see how two things worked.  The first was to see how her backpack is with a full load and the second was to see how my feet handle carrying additional weight while wearing FiveFingers.  We were using this day and hike as a practice run for our upcoming hike of the Fundy Circuit in Fundy National Park over the last weekend in August.  The group for that hike will consist of me, my son, my cousin-in-law and two friends from work.

Fundy Circuit

I have wanted to do a multi-day hike for a while now and this summer it is finally coming together with me and four others doing the Fundy Circuit which is in Fundy National Park in NB, Canada the last weekend in August.  The trail goes around the perimeter of the National Park and is about 45 km long and takes anywhere from 1-5 days to hike depending on how keen, fit and how long you want to take.  We have decided to do it in three days, with two nights out in the woods.  Just a few of the highlights about the park and the Bay area is that it has over 110km of hiking trails, the highest tides in the world, home to over 12 species of rare and endangered whales, dinosaur fossils, a marine ecology comparable to the Amazon rain forest  and the Bay of Fundy is in the running to be declared one of the 7 natural wonders of the world.  If that is not enough to make you want to go, then I don’t know what will.

But that hike is still to come… I want to focus on todays hike.  I used today as a practice to see how my feet would hold up to carrying a pack up and down hills and over everything from rock beaches, forest floor and some paved road while wearing my VFFs.  I wear my VFFs for pretty much everything active I do, such as my CrossFit workouts, road races, day hikes, and lately while at TreeGo but I had never worn them over several days and while carrying weight.  I wanted to have a chance to find out how my feet would feel the next day after carrying my pack, and I wanted to know this before I end up out the actual hike miles from help should they not be up to the task.  My cousin-in-law used today as a chance to try her backpack out and see how heavy it is prior to heading on the trail as well.

Practice Hike

So a few things came out from todays hike and proves that with proper planning and some practice, you can learn a few things in a more controlled situation.  The first is that my feet did not hurt at all carrying the extra weight of the pack.  Granted it is only 29lbs but I wanted to be sure.  I had no problems across any of the terrain we covered, other then the usual that lots of round rocks on beaches still kind of hurt the feet, but it did even without the pack so I am not worried.  My cousin-in-law is decided to remove some non-essential items at home in order to free up some weight in her pack and we have shared some items, such as stove and cook set, to save on weight.  My son is also very adamant that he needs a platypus water bladder as he is beyond carrying a water bottle and I don’t think I can blame him. Carrying a bottle and opening it while hiking is a pain, so it looks like another trip to the Radical Edge for more kit.  I have heard somewhere before about the 7 “P’s”, which stand for Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.  I think we covered that today and I don’t expect any problems next weekend.

So hopefully my next post will be about how fun and successful my hike went while wearing Vibram FiveFingers.

Do you have any experience doing a longer, multi-day hike in FiveFingers?  If you have any tips please share them in teh comments below!.  While experience is a great way to learn, if I can learn from others I’ll take it first.

(If you are on Twitter, you can follow me at @robchfr)