Bruce Trail Hikes

 I can't believe it has been eight months since my last post.  Over that time we have continued the south section of the Bruce from home during the winter, and continued the north section near Owen Sound from the cottage in the summer.  This map shows in yellow how much we have covered so far. We have covered over 40% of the total trail, about 360 km according to the Bruce Trail maps but closer to 430 km according to our Fitbit.  The south section took us through Glen Haffy conservation area all the way up to Hockley Valley, and the north section took us through Bass Lake all the way to Kemble Mountain.  Here is a few pics.      Soon we wiil take a brief break from the Bruce to fly to Peru and do a five day hike over the Salkantay Pass to Machu Picchu (74 km at 14,000 feet).  Assuming we survive it, we'll be back on the Bruce.  In January Brian is cutting back to work just 3 days per week, so hopefully we'll be able to increase the frequ...

Five more weeks and five more hikes.  We've had beautiful sunny days, below freezing which is perfect for snow instead of slush.  Lynne, Scott, Stephanie, and Frank joined us for the section through Terra Cotta conservation area.  It was a great hike, and we even got to go out to the Copper Kettle Pub in Georgetown for dinner afterwards.  For some it was the first time in a pub for a couple of years.  All in all a terrific day. The next week Brian and I continued north through Forks of the Credit provincial park near Caledon Ski club.  This was beautiful, but a very challenging hike.  14km and 20,000 steps according to FitBit.  It would have been a lot easier to go down the mountain on skis.  This section was treacherous.  

So I bet you thought we had given up.  Actually, we have been on 5 hikes since the last posting.  We just thought we would start combining some into a single post so people don't get bored.  In early December we did a hike in Kelso before they opened Glen Eden ski club.  They have some great mountain bike trails that run through the forest at the top of the escarpment and then down the ski hills.  Great escarpment views! Then we decided to do an extra hike in Hilton Falls that was not even part of the Bruce Trail (although it was near it).  The next hike after that was supposed to be from Hilton Falls conservation area to Speyside.  We parked my car at Speyside, and then drove in Brian's car to Hilton Falls.  We got about half way into the hike when luckily Brian decided to ask me where my keys were.  I don't know what made him think to ask that, but it was a very good thing.  I realized I had locked them back in Brian's car, so we had t...

We have closed the cottage and now we are continuing the southern part of Bruce Trail.  Before cottage season we left off at Cedar Springs.  For the last two outings we did Crawford Lake and Rattlesnake Point conservation areas.  No more free parking, but boy these conservation areas are beautiful, especially with the fall colours. On the way to Crawford Lake we saw lots of leaves and a few hawks And then we took our grand-dog Odie to Rattlesnake

We did two more walks during the weekends when we didn't have guests at our cottage.  Day 22 was Inglis Falls just south of Owen Sound.  We had to hold up some of the big rocks that looked about to fall      Took a break half way through by a nice river. And then ended up at the falls themselves. For Day 23 we continued north of Owen Sound toward Wiarton.  Although it was a nice day, I was totally covered to protect myself from  ticks and poison ivy We had to keep our eyes on the ground to avoid falling into the extremely deep crevices  And by the end of the walk I was exhausted.  This was our longest walk yet.  15 km according to the Bruce Trail map, 18km according to Fitbit (due to walking up and down the escarpment), and 5 straight hours of walking!!!  

We have moved up to the cottage for the summer, so our hikes have moved as well.  Now we are doing the Georgian Bay section of the trail, starting at Owen Sound which is an hour or so from our cottage.  We started at the Visitors Center at highway 21 and 6, and headed north.  Our first stop was Jones Falls. We proceeded along trying not to fall into the large crevasses Or fall off the high ledges Or run into dangerous wildlife.  Now that we are farther north we need to be more aware of our surroundings.  We nearly walked straight into porcupine!  We slowly backed up and let him climb a tree before we continued along. The Georgian Rail Trail provided a nice flat section we shared with cyclists and ATV's. We did 11km in just over 3 hours and 18,000 steps!