My Bruce Trail Blogs

Once we got there, however, we had some difficulty in finding the beginning of the trail. After looking around for a few minutes, we decided to split up and look for the trail markings. At this point, I had no idea what the trail markings were supposed to look like, so I stayed close to the Monument and took a few photos for posterity.

Another 5-10 minutes later, apparently the trail was found, and we went back to the parking lot, which was where the cairn - which marks the endpoint of the trail - was actually located. Right across from one of the cars, too. Kinda makes one feel a bit silly for having missed it in the first place, but then I don't think we really knew what to look for.

History of the Bruce Trail

So we started off down the trail, which started off along a pathway, and then cut across a field to a driveway, and then into the woods. The trail was well trodden, at least, so even if we forgot how to read the blazes, we would still be able to follow the trail. (One of my friends gave us a brief lesson in reading the trail blazes before we started out.) If you looked over your right shoulder while walking along this stretch of the trail, you could see down the side of the escarpment, and onto the farmlands below. Very picturesque.

It soon became evident that although the group was generally just walking along and chatting amongst itself, there were some members of the group that walked at a faster speed than the rest of us. But every so often, they would stop and wait for the rest of us to catch up before moving on. And particularly when they came across something interesting - like the first time we came upon a deep fissure in the rock below the path.

It wasn't much farther before we realized just how hilly the trail can be. And how slippery mud was - especially mud made of clay. We had to be very careful about our footing: because it was early spring, and because it had rained that morning, the ground was very wet and very slippery. We were very thankful for the trees growing beside the trail, for they were often what was keeping us from going down a muddy slope on our bottoms.

One of the hills we came across had railings of a sort, along the edges of the trail. The path zigzagged its way down, making (I think) seven turns before reaching the bottom - halfway down the escarpment.

We eventually reached our halfway point - a park off a side road, with a pond (which was flooded at the time), out-houses, a picnic shelter and a parking lot. By this time, one member of our group had developed some pretty bad blisters and decided to sit with the car that we had parked here (also being relatively close to the end point, at least by road) and wait for us to finish our hike. Unfortunately, not long after we left the park, it started raining. She was luckily able to wait under the picnic shelter, but it was cold nonetheless, and the rest of the hike took over an hour and a half. She did not have a good day.

I don't remember much of the rest of the hike very well, except that it was wet, muddy, and slippery. At times it was like walking through wet cement - the clay mud just caked onto your shoes, and there was really no way around it. (BTW, when clay mud dries, it doesn't just crumble into sand like other mud, and it doesn't dissolve very well in water, either.) It did eventually stop raining, but we were all very cold and wet and tired by the end of today's hike, and the drive home was very quiet.

Continue on to Hike #2