{"id":1409,"date":"2019-02-12T22:33:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T03:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/?p=1409"},"modified":"2019-03-24T20:56:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T00:56:21","slug":"vanessas-ghta-e2e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/?p=1409","title":{"rendered":"Vanessa’s GHTA E2E"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wow, another GHTA Wilderness Club member representing! Congratulations Miranda on completing the entire trail. Here is her account of her fantastic journey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hello there, I am happy in sending my logs\nfor my E2E badge. I wasn\u2019t sure where to start but I will do it telling the\nbest thing that happened to me in the trail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time I think on that day I want to cry\nof excitement as a little girl in the wilderness section. We were only four\nhikers and I was the ahead when I saw the big, puffy gorgeous bear. I\u2019m pretty\nsure he was more scared than me but that moment is imprinted in my head forever\nsince I stayed still and couldn\u2019t take a picture of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pine Ridge section, spring 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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One of my first hikes ever was in Ganaraska Wilderness\nin 2017; it was an 8 hours hike with high humidity and thousands of mosquitoes\nbut worth to try and since then I haven\u2019t stop hiking. First I finished the\nBruce trail then the Oak Ridges Moraine because I was anxious about the stories\nabout the wilderness so I prepared and organized the hikes meticulously for\nsafety of everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Midland (my 10 years old son)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Close to Victoria Bridge at the end of our backpacking journey<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The backpacking in the wilderness section was\nthe hardest one since it was one of the hottest humid days in September. I\nbecame dehydrated with symptoms like vomiting, migraine and dizziness I thought\nI wasn\u2019t going to make it but the next day I was the strongest one while the\nothers were struggling with the heat. In the other hikes on the Ragged and\nMontgomery trail we loved the autumn colours and I had a moment of silence in\nfront of the rock remembering Doris, the hiker who died years before. I know in\nmy heart she was doing what she loved, hiking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ragged Rapids Loop<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There are other memorable hikes along the\ntrail like the last one in the Mad river section with deep snow and strong cold\nwinds. We loved Creemore town and feared its smallest jail, better not\nmisbehave in that place \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Western Cairn\/Devils Glen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Creemore Town<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Wasaga section had a couple of beautiful\nspots like in the Nordic area where we saw loons and we observed the sand dunes\nbut our phones and camera were dead due to the cold temperatures and we\ncouldn\u2019t take pictures but one, we did 31km on that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wasaga Beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Wasaga Section \/ Nottawasaga area<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Wasaga Provincial Park \/ Sand Dunes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Barrie section was funny since we started our\nday with positivism and enthusiasm but a muddy pothole swallowed my leg\ntogether with my snowshoe, hehehe we went back home for the first time after an\nincident like this one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hiking along the lake in the Orillia section\nwas wonderful, I\u2019m thinking in coming back at some point in spring or summer\ntime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Orillia Section<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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I want to confess that my reason to start\nhiking was to overcome my illnesses and find peace in my soul and mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Victoria Bridge, fall 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

 When I\nstarted my journey I was a \u2018victim of domestic violence\u2019. I wanted to run away\nbut instead I asked for professional help. During my hospitalizations my\ntherapists noticed I loved walking and wondering in the city for hours and\ncapable of doing 30km every day. I was advised to find a group in the MeetUp so\nI could meet people and I found the hiking group there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now,\nI\u2019m not longer a victim, I\u2019m a survivor. After more than a decade I left the\nabusive environment, a decision that I took while hiking. Sauntering in the\ntrail cleared my mind and I drastically change the turn of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nam free to do what I like at the same time helping those who join me in my\ngroup for whatever reason they are hiking. Mental illness is invisible and as a\nsurvivor I can tell you I learned to fake my happiness very well but hiking\nbrought me peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For\nnow, our next trail is the Grand Valley and Avon trails and then I\u2019m hoping\nthere will be another trail to put my feet on the ground while I\u2019m trying to\nlive my present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks\nto all the volunteers and members from the Ganaraska trail association that made\nit possible for us to hike safely. Especial thanks to Glynn, John, Carol, Tom,\nFrieda and Louis for responding back to my emails and phone calls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nspecial thanks to Troy who was my partner-in-crime in every single hike;\nwithout him this wouldn\u2019t be possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks\nto my closest members in the Hiking Team GTA: Jean & Frank, Jeremy, Selena,\nNatalie, Paul, Tanya, Neha, Garima, Alex, Tony, Jonathan, Gerry, Sandi, Naira, and\nmany more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Trails to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vanessa Miranda, Hike Leader Ontario<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, another GHTA Wilderness Club member representing! Congratulations Miranda on completing the entire trail. Here is her account of her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14],"tags":[27,26,25,24,23,16],"class_list":["post-1409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ghta","category-wilderness-club","tag-e2e","tag-end-2-end","tag-end-end","tag-ganaraska-hiking-trail-association","tag-ghta","tag-wilderness-club","post-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1409"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ganaraska-hiking-trail.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}