Hundreds of people disappear in the Canadian wilderness every year. Many I never seen or heard

from again. Some are found in various stages of decay, days, weeks, months or sometimes

times even years after the disappearance. Few are found alive.

In the January of 1991, my friends and I became part of those statistics.

The drip we planned was an outdoor hiking camping wilderness adventure. We were all in

our late teens to early 20s and most of us having recently graduated high school were eager

to take this wanted and lifetime opportunity before college.

January seemed like the ideal for us as it allowed us to save up money after graduating

and was just after the holiday season or not yet deep winter in Canada.

Admittedly, none of us were very experienced in hiking or camping, but the older members

of our party had been camping before, so we relied heavily on them for guidance.

We had also heard that Canadian people were very kind to tourists and expected to make

friends out on the trail who could help us if anything bad happened.

When we arrived, we weren't disappointed. Everyone we met was helpful and nice. It was

a bit colder than we had expected it to be, but it didn't dampen the experience.

About a week into our trip, we experienced our first trail closure. It was intended to

be a three day trek, if not four, when considering a leisurely pace. However, severe weather was

expected, therefore the trail was tagged as off-limits. To say we were disappointed was

an understatement. We stood for a while at the trailhead complaining amongst ourselves

because as far as we could tell the weather was perfect. Bright sunshine, no clouds in

the sky, no wind. We came to think that the trail closed sign was for days past and

so we had just forgotten to take it down since the area was so remote.

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