I've been wanting to run the Casque Iles Trail ever since I've heard of it. A rugged trail with a large variety of terrain situated on the North Shore of Lake Superior. I had run a couple sections to get a feel for the trail and have had great days on the trail. Due to the technical nature of this trail I knew it was probably going to take me all day to accomplish a full pull of the entire trail. I wanted to attempt this feat in the fall time for some cooler temps and less bugs. I decided October 9th worked best with my schedule and put it on the calendar.
I discussed with my partner and bless her soul, she said she'd be willing to drop me off at the start, spend all day in some small isolated towns during my run, pick me up at the end, and then drive my wrecked ass home. I packed my running vest the night before. I enjoy fruit leathers during my run so I loaded up on those. I added a few granola and cereal bars as well for a little variety. I also threw in some caffeinated gels for a little boost. I brought three 500ml soft flasks with me. I added a couple liquid carb powders to my regular soft flasks to sip on through out the run and filled my filter soft flask with regular water. I also added a liquid carb packet in the back of my running vest to stay topped up. I also added my head lamp, some toilet paper, some tums and a few other essentials to my vest.
My alarm went off at about 5:30am. We had some breakfast of cinnamon toast crunch, gathered all the equipment and got in the car. With the limited day light in Northern Ontario this time of year we had to start early so I wasn't running in the dark. we arrived at Terrace Bay Beach around 8:30. This was our first time here and we found the facilities to be quite nice. I enjoyed said facilities and started my run.
Beginning such a large run always feels daunting. I set expectations that this is what I'll be doing all day today and I start to lock in. the first kilometer ticks by and I realize I'm only 2% finished. I like to us a technique called "chunking" as a way to not get caught up in thinking I have so many more kilometers to go. While I may only be 1 KM in that's actually 10% of 10KM which is 20% of the total..... plus a few extra Ks for way finding and such. I'm practically there already.
The variety of surface on this trail is one aspect that makes this trail so amazing and technical. I start by running on a dry sandy trail. Soon I find myself on a loose gravel access road, then that connects to a more maintained packed gravel road. The trail leaves the gravel road to enter the forest as a nicely packed dirt trail. the trail brings me down to another beach where I will run along the waters edge on top of packed sand. On the other side of the beach the trail heads back up and I enter an open field filled with baby head sized round rocks. While most of the trail I've been chasing blue trail markers attached to trees, now I need to follow large rock piles as there are no trees in the middle of this rock field. These rock field sections can last for 100m or up to about 1km. The footing in these sections can be difficult as the round rocks don't settle and will often roll around a lot. after a couple sections of this I will enter another large open area of bed rock with large patches of thick lichen and moss. Then some sections of the trail will be more loamy in nature. Other sections will be quite swampy with sphagnum moss and tree roots. these sections can be hard as well, the tree roots are spaced irregularly and the moss doesn't form a hard stable surface so some moments the ground is firm and dry, some moments the ground is soft and wet and other times the ground is soft until I hit a hidden tree root in a place I did not expect. Then there are sections of the trail where I'm scrambling across bed rock while the waters of Lake Superior are about 20 ft below. The terrain changes so often I can never quite find a rhythm to run.
The changing terrain keeps thing from becoming too monotonous but I find my focus being demanded tiresome at points. The trail is always up and down, between running on a beach at the water's edge to over looking some of the best views from hills over 200m above the lake, it is quite challenging.
I make it about half way to Schreiber beach and ditch more than a few fruit leather wrappers in the garbage before filtering some water into another flask with some more carb powder. the nice thing about the Casque Iles trail is that you're never very far from water. So I only need to bring a little water with me at a time and I can filter water on the go from many small creeks, rivers or even the lake itself.
After making it about three quarters of the way along the trail I enter the Rainbow falls section of the trail. this is the only section of trail I haven't explored before. my knee starts to slow me down. the sun starts to set because I've had to slow as to not aggravate my knee more. now with the sun fully down I need to rely on my head lamp to navigate. luckily all trails is working on my phone and I have a little help finding my way around. Running on a well worn in trail in the woods isn;t so bad in the dark but those large open sections when I need to find a large rock pile in a rock field or a blue marker on one of the trees scattered around, that's when things get a little scary in the dark. This is when doubts creep in. but those doubts are met with the fact I can't really do anything about it because I need to make it to the finish for things to stop any way. So I stay locked in and keep going. luckily the trail administration is vigilant and trail marking is excellent. I finally make it to the finish where my partner is waiting with a nice juicy burger.
Another beautiful fall day spent in Northern Ontario.