Long Range Traverse, Gros Morne

Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland · Canada

Challenging5 daysNorth America~£380 est.

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Overview

There is no trail on the Long Range Traverse. A boat drops you at the head of Western Brook Pond — a landlocked fjord walled by 600m cliffs — and you climb a steep gully onto the plateau, where for four or five days you navigate tundra, tarns and head-high tuckamore thickets by map, compass and judgement. Caribou drift across the barrens, moose crash out of spruce hollows, and from the rim you look straight down the fjord you sailed up on day one. Parks Canada treats this as a serious undertaking: numbers are capped, you must pass a navigation briefing (and quiz) at the visitor centre before your backcountry permit is issued, and you carry a loaned emergency beacon. Fog is the true examiner — the plateau is featureless in cloud, and parties who trust their legs over their compass end up walled out above the wrong gully. Stage from Rocky Harbour or Cow Head on Newfoundland's west coast; Deer Lake is the nearest airport. The boat across the pond and the permit must both be booked ahead for July to September. Around £380 including permit, boat and campsites — plus a rest day in your plan for weather, which you will probably use.