It's all about the maps

 I'm not sure what it is about maps.  Whenever we go on vacation, I really enjoy using Google and TripAdvisor to explore new areas, find places to walk, and set out a route for the day.  Then I spend a good chunk of the day repeatedly checking the map and wondering why the heck we aren't where I thought we would be.  We always discover interesting things, but we often end up taking quite a different route than we had originally planned.

For hiking the Bruce, this is not going to work.

Having to grab an Uber at the end of Day 1 to get to my car that I had parked where I thought the hike would end was a very humbling experience.  Now I'm doubling down on my map obsession.  Here is the plan...

First, I have downloaded the latest maps from https://brucetrail.org/store/category/11.  Apparently there is an updated mobile app being developed, but it won't be out until the summer.  The route has changed significantly since my hard copy trail reference from 1997 was printed (this is my excuse for Day 1).  The Bruce Trail is divided into 9 clubs, each of which covers 3-5 maps for 42 maps and 900 km in total.   For now we are doing 7-10 km each hike in a couple of hours or so.  We started at the southern most tip in Niagara, and are doing contiguous sections for now.  

• Day 1 Niagara 0.0 to 10.2
• Day 2 Niagara 10.2 to 16.7
• Day 3 Niagara 16.7 to 23.4
• etc

We start where we left off, and I pick and end point where we can park 7-10 km down the trail.  I print the map and highlight the start and end points.  We take two cars, dropping mine at the end point and taking Vicky's to the start.  We follow the trail markers, and when we are an hour in or so I check Google Maps to make sure we really are heading toward my car.  

Being a map geek, I have created personal google maps to track our progress and plan our hikes.  If you are a map geek too, come back to this post to see how we are progressing.

Here are the "Progress to Date" maps.

And here is the "Next Hike" map.

For now the route is contiguous, but when summer comes we'll do hikes on the way to or from our cottage in Kincardine.  We'll start these hikes from here.

And when we are staying at the cottage, we'll do a stretch starting at Owen Sound.