Hiking challenging trails while lugging a 15-kilogram pack has taught Christian Charest, an editor with Toronto-based Morningstar Canada, the value of editing his belongings. One of the most important lessons the 40-year-old Charest has learned in his 30 years of hiking is to pack light.
“I bring only what’s necessary,” says Charest. “And my idea of what’s necessary changes in the wilderness. You realize you don’t need much.”
For example, Charest brings only two sets of clothes. One set is kept dry in his pack, and he changes into it after a day on the trail when he is ready to relax around the campsite. The other set is his hiking outfit, which he dons when he sets out in the morning. If it was raining the day before, the hiking outfit may still be wet when he puts it on, but he knows he always has the dry clothes in his pack that will make him comfortable in the evenings.
Charest’s definition of what’s essential has changed considerably since he began hiking at the age of 10 in Quebec’s Mont Tremblant region with his father and older brother. Back then, Charest would be loaded down with items such as heavy glass jars of peanut butter, a bulky sleeping bag and a canvas tent — not the kind of lightweight equipment and dried food that hikers usually carry these days. But despite the exhausting labour of carrying this gear, hiking got into Charest’s blood.
Charest is making plans for a six-week sabbatical next summer, when he will be trekking an 800-kilometre trail in the Pyrenees along the France/Spain border. Each Morningstar employee is granted a six-week sabbatical every four years; as a 12-year employee, this is Charest’s third. Charest’s previous two sabbaticals have been spent doing long-distance hikes on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, a 3,500-km trail running between Georgia and Maine in the U.S.
Although Charest is married, he prefers to hike alone and in the off-season, when trails are uncrowded. He has met “interesting characters” but doesn’t walk with anyone for long and will often find himself the only person staying in the rustic shelters and campsites along a trail. Charest travels without a cellphone or electronic devices, as he feels they are a distraction from the natural experience.
“I enjoy solitude when I’m hiking,” says Charest. “It’s like a meditation. For several days at a time, I may not see anyone at all. It’s a great way to clear your mind or to do some deep thinking about social, educational or philosophical issues. The worries of your everyday life are far away, you’re dealing only with the present. And it’s a pleasure to focus on nature and simply getting to the next destination.”
On Charest’s long treks, he averages 25 km a day. In addition to his one change of clothes, he carries a nylon tent, sleeping bag, stove, dried food, water and a journal. Typically, the long-distance routes require that Charest be self-sufficient for about a week, based on the distance between points at which he can restock his supplies of food and water, take a shower and have a restaurant meal that includes meat.
Since Charest moved from his native city of Montreal to Toronto in his mid-20s, he has hiked regularly on the 900-km Bruce Trail in central/southwestern Ontario. This trail follows the edge of the Niagara Escarpment and is one of 13 UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves in Canada. Before Charest owned a car, he had explored every part of this trail that is accessible by public transit.
Both ends of the Bruce Trail are accessible by public transit, a convenience that means Charest doesn’t have to find his way back to where he started from. Although most of the trail is designed for day hikes rather than extended trips requiring overnight camping, now that Charest owns a car, he’s hoping to explore some of the more remote, northern sections of this trail, on which there are some campsites that make multi-day trips possible.
Charest has used short vacations to hike in British Columbia and has explored Mount Robson Provincial Park and the Sunshine Coast, as well as the Adirondack Trail in New York state and Speyside Way in Scotland. During a three-day trek on the Sunshine Coast trail in May 2011, Charest was surprised to find himself on a shady section of the trail, hiking in freezing weather conditions with a few feet of snow.
“Weather doesn’t bother me on long trips,” he says, “and on a six-week trip, there’s usually all kinds of weather conditions. But on shorter trips, I want nice weather or I’ll stay home.”
Charest has experienced other challenges on his journeys, including a bad stumble in which he broke his eyeglasses and the times when water had dried up at springs or in streams marked on his map, forcing him to leave the trail to find water to refill his containers.
Charest has vivid memories of quenching a raging thirst after finally finding a stream, having gone a long time without water, and of some of the delicious meals he has cooked up using such ingredients as dehydrated vegetable mix, sundried tomatoes, beef jerky or a can of sardines. “When you’re planning [your hike],” he says, it’s important to bring the condiments — the olive oil, the spices, and the salt and pepper. They don’t grow on trees.”
Occasionally, when Charest gets nostalgic for hiking during the dead of winter, he’ll prepare one of his hiking dishes at home. But, he says, the food just doesn’t taste the same when he isn’t starving from the exertion of hiking and isn’t eating his meal in the great outdoors.
Charest says every hike offers a set of experiences and memories that last a lifetime, and he gets great pleasure remembering past hikes and planning the next one: “Every hike is made up of countless moments which, when put together, make up a wonderful experience.” IE