After hearing and reading about my hiking adventures, and there are many of them, people have asked what are my favourite 3, 5, or 10 difficult hikes that I completed.
Just to let my readers know, I started hiking when K2, our Hungarian Kuvasz, turned into a handsome boy as a one year old after entering my family’s life as an 8 week old puppy. Soon after, I ventured into nature photography on the go as I wanted to document my routine outings with him. I did not hike for the purpose of walking at a brisk pace for physical health reasons alone. I hiked to observe nature – landscapes, flora, fauna, and even heavenly bodies. Therefore, company of K2 came in handy as he kept sniffing the grounds letting me concentrate on my passion.
I noticed that being in nature reduced anger, fear, and stress and increased pleasant feelings. I felt better emotionally and physically.
Being on the trails for longer duration also enabled me to meet people of diverse backgrounds, who indirectly strengthened my belief that most people are good and they want the world to be a better place for all.
However, I digress.
Going back to the original question, keeping natural beauty aside as all these hikes offered it, I took into consideration the following 3 factors to come up with the list of my top of 5 difficult hikes:
- length of the trail;
- difficulty of the trail, e.g., if it involved elevation gain; and
- stress.
Here is the list of my top 5 hikes from the least difficult to the most.
5: A hiking micro-adventure with K2 during the polar vortex
It was a moderately difficult hike due to extremely harsh weather conditions of the polar vortex, but the stress level was also moderate as I was in the company of my furry friend K2 and the farthest point of the trail was about 7 km away from my home.
We hiked northward on the Culham trail, as it passed through a conservation area to Churchville, a small village in the neighbouring city of Brampton, all along the frozen Credit River.
We hiked extremely carefully at a snail-pace under a snowfall with snow accumulating over an icy trail with hurricane like wind that had my face feeling like stung by zillions of bees continuously. I covered my face with a buff thermonet, but the cunning wind still found ways to reach parts of my skin. Even under those treacherous conditions, we saw wildlife.
We were fortunate not to slip while on the trail. However, as we emerged out of the trail on an iced sidewalk at about 7 pm to head towards home, which was about 1 km away, I had a nasty slip that sent me flat on my back.
This hike is covered in a blog here.
4: Hiking in New Forest National Park, UK for wild deer
It was almost a day-long hike on an easy trail, albeit under rain when my Achilles Tendinitis like pain returned. Although the trail was easy, a combination of events led to a moderately high stress level.
I got lost during the initial section of the trail and took guidance from a park ranger who directed me to take a circuitous route through open meadows and grasslands to the forest so that I could explore the park, as well as find red deer. On the way, I saw horses and cows grazing and resting in separate sections of grassy fields. This was the section where I found myself all alone under intimidating clouds and thought about giving up the hike.
When I thought to abort my quest for red deer and turned around to return, to my pleasant surprise, I saw a red deer stag coming out of nowhere and quickly disappearing in the thicket. He was followed by a number of dos.
This hike is covered in a blog here.
3. negotiating 11 hills in south downs national park in the uk
It was a moderately difficult day-long 20.5 miles (33 km) hike from the town of Eastbourne to the village of Seaford that I completed in the company of Shahab, husband of my beautiful and loving niece settled in the UK.
The hike was all about ascending and descending steep slopes of 11 hills, including the famous group of hills known as Seven Sisters, observing pastoral life, sun sets, wild horses, and waterfowl in its culminating marsh section.
Truth be told, when I looked up the first hill after ascending half-way, I thought I would not be able to conquer even the first hill of the 11. Shahab looked at me, noticed my despair, and encouraged me by saying he remembered a food and ice cream kiosk by the road as it passed near the hilltop. I mustered up the courage, and a few energy drinks and an ice cream later, slowly started to ascend and descend the remaining hills.
After the first experience, I completed this entire hike under a low level of stress, getting views of the wildlife towards the end of the hike in the marshes.
You can read my blog on this hike here.
2. Hiking in Mont tremblant national park, quebec
My son Rayyan and I hiked on Sentier La Corniche, La Coulee, and La Rosche trails of Secteur de la Diable, part of an 8.2 km series of loop trails of ‘intermediate’ difficulty, leading to an observation deck that offers a jaw-dropping view of the Lac Monroe valley and the Mont Tremblant highlands.
The difficult, almost vertical hike of La Corniche to the observation deck on the mountaintop took its toll on my knees. As I had recently recovered from the Covid-19, my heartbeat was so hard that I thought my heart would just burst out of my chest. Every step was an ordeal. My son kept on urging me to move and at the same time allowing me to take a breather every now and then.
A woman in a group descending from the top, went flat on the rocky ground after getting tangled in a rock or a root of a tree. Having gone through this ordeal myself on a number of occasions while hiking in the winters, I could relate. For a few minutes there was panic as the woman tried to get up taking time and causing a bottleneck on the trail.
This hike is covered in my blog on Parc National du Mont Tremblant in Quebec here.
1. the gros morne mountain – four Ontario men went up a hill and came down a mountain
We, the group of 4 that included my younger brother Owais, my nephew Ammar, and my son Rayyan, painfully hiked towards the end point of our hike – the parking lot, which was our start point also 8 hours ago. Encouraging each other, taking short resting stops every now and then, and venting our frustration on our lack of hiking experience of this level of difficulty, we trudged on.
We ran out of water and food earlier during the hike and our knees and ankles hurt after taking the impact of 13 km of scaling the Gros Morne Mountain at the National Park made to honour it in the Canadian province of Newfoundland from its almost straight south face and then descending it from the northeast and southwest sides, making a balloon shaped path.
We are glad that my (and Owais’) nephew Ammar chose Gros Morne National Park for our exploration. This hike did turn out to be very challenging. The truth is that no matter how difficult the hike was, the four of us will always cherish the memories of it.
The details of this hike are covered in my blog here.
final words
Until our next blog, au revoir! Be outdoorsy, embrace diversity, and support causes for the conservation of nature!
K2, the Kuvasz, and me 