It takes experienced hikers three or four days to conquer the Whiteshell’s challenging Mantario Trail — best friends did it in 24.5 hours

It takes experienced hikers three or four days to conquer the Whiteshell’s challenging Mantario Trail — best friends did it in 24.5 hours

Her headlamp around her neck, its light directed towards her hands, Katrina Zborowsky waited for Chantal Maclean to throw her the Garmin GPS. It was 1:30 a.m. and Zborowsky had just run on a narrow log across a three-metre water crossing, in pitch darkness.

“At this point we were quite cold — our bodies likely going into shock a little — so we knew falling into the water would be detrimental. We had to run across the log one at a time. The log was kinda broken at the end so the final few feet we had to jump off the log to get across. It was a very sketchy moment,” says Zborowsky, 29.

“I threw my $1,000 GPS, and she caught it. We wanted to be done so badly at that point,” interjects Maclean, 28.

They both laugh.

Less than 24 hours before, at 3 a.m. on June 9, Zborowsky and Maclean were dropped off at the head of the 63-kilometre-long Mantario Trail. They emerged on the other side at 3.30 a.m. the next day, exhausted and covered in ticks, with waterlogged, blistered feet.

“The first thing we did when we got to my car was sit on the tailgate and remove our shoes… ” Zborowsky says, pausing to let Maclean take up the tale.

“… and then we contemplated whether we needed to go to the hospital that night or wait until the next day,” the latter continues.

Zborowsky and Maclean, who is currently based in Churchill, are fairly outdoorsy and were unfazed by the thought of mosquitoes, leeches and other creepy-crawlies. They wrapped duct tape around their legs to stop ticks from crawling up but still managed to find hundreds of them on the backs of their necks and in their hair.

The Mantario Trail in Whiteshell Provincial Park is considered one of the most challenging wilderness hiking trails in the province. Covering wild and rugged terrain, the trail meanders through lakes, streams and peat bogs. Often there are only logs or rudimentary bridges to cross the many bodies of water.

With no way off it once you start — just a beginning and an end — the only way out is to keep going.

Most experienced hikers take between three to four days to walk its length.

But not Zborowsky and Maclean; they managed to do it in 24 ½ hours.

The pair, both from Charleswood, have been friends for 20 years. Gleeful laughter punctuates the conversation as they recount their adventure and there is more than one occasion when they seem incredulous at their incredible achievement.

Free Press: What possessed you both to do such a thing?

Chantal Maclean: It’s been a lifelong goal of mine to trail run the entire trail. I’ve hiked it numerous times, but I’ve never run the entire length. This was the most ambitious physical endeavour I’ve undertaken. I needed to find the perfect partner. I was looking for someone who was athletic and had the right attitude and Kat was all those things… at least until she fell into the mud pit. (laughs)

Katrina Zborowsky: I was not impressed. I fell in waist-deep at the five- to six-kilometre mark. That’s five hours into our 24.5-hour adventure. The sun was just coming up.

I consider myself a runner. I’ve done hikes here and there, but never done the trail before, so when she came to me with this idea, I didn’t even second-guess it.

FP: What would you say were some of the more challenging aspects of doing this?

CM: The logistics and safety planning. The preparation to safely attempt a trail run is unbelievably time-consuming. We received sponsorship from the Manitoba Conservation Officers’ Association (MCOA) — they were the people who we kept in touch with. They drove us to the trail head and we communicated with them throughout the day.

KZ: The MCOA made us feel very safe, knowing that we could communicate with them the whole time. You can rest if you are running this but we opted to go the whole length and only stop for water filtration breaks. We filtered out water at lake points and we would eat as we walked. We didn’t stop for rest points throughout. We had a max of 20 minutes stop every four hours.

FP: Was there anything more you could have done to prepare?

KZ: I feel like we could have trained a little more… I did spin classes, cardio, boxing and some strength training, but nothing can fully prepare you for it.

CM: Once we decided on a date, it was a lot of treadmill work for me. It’s a bit challenging doing any running training in Churchill; it’s either super cold or there are polar bears around, so lots of my training was indoors on the treadmill. When you are running over 10K on a treadmill, it’s not fun.

FP: Did you speak to many people before attempting this? What has the hiking community’s reaction been like?

CM: We had a lot of support going into it, we were utilizing people who have done it before, like the Manitoba Trail Runners Association and Trails of Toba. And then Mallory Richard; she has the fastest known time for a female on the trail. Mallory has run it in eight hours 56 minutes. She is really incredible; she is a phenomenal athlete. One thing we want to emphasize: we could only do this because we had a ton of support from the trail-running community, who had a ton of information, and the Manitoba outdoor community who really rallied behind us on it.

KZ: Neither one of us thought that this would ever be seen by so many people, so it’s pretty remarkable; we want to thank everyone.

FP: Your aim was to complete it in 17 hours but you ended up taking a bit more time. What happened?

CM: We had a goal. We plotted it out on Garmin and the physical map. We were aiming to move at four kilometres an hour and we thought 17 hours was more than enough time, but we ran into some obstacles. Because it’s so early in the season, the trail runs were pushed down so it was extremely easy to go off-trail, especially in the dark. For the first three and the last five hours we were in the dark, walking in circles… that’s why we ended up adding so many extra kilometres.

KZ: The total was 76.5 kilometres. We added an extra 13 kilometres being lost in the dark, and that was even with the GPS.

FP: At what point did you find yourselves not wanting to go on? And what was it like being together for such a long time? Any frayed tempers?

CM: The first 20 kilometres was fun but then it got tiresome pretty quickly. The more blisters we got, the more uncomfortable things became (laughs).

KZ: We were quite chatty the first half and then it started to dwindle down, and at one point I told her, “I have to have a conversation to keep me distracted,” and she was like, “What are we going to talk about? I have nothing to say.”

CM: Being awake for 24 1/2 hours and together the entire time was a lot, but no one got grumpy; there were no tense moments. We just kept walking into the night. We went into it realizing all we needed to do was keep walking to the end. If I tried to do this with anyone else I would still be out there; Kat is the perfect partner.

KZ: You have to have full faith and trust in your running partner, I knew no matter what her and I would be able to do it.

CM: If you are going to be dumb, you better be tough, and we were tough!

FP: Now you’ve done this, what are you planning on taking on next?

CM: We have some news! CanU Canada is a Winnipeg-based group that do this every single year for charity and in September 2024 we are going to be forming a team and running it again. CanU awards scholarships to underprivileged youths going to the U of M. We didn’t realize that was a thing prior to this, but the next time we do this, we will be raising money for them.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

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Credit: It takes experienced hikers three or four days to conquer the Whiteshell’s challenging Mantario Trail — best friends did it in 24.5 hours