My Bruce Trail Blogs

This weekend was the third week of our Bruce Trail hike. We Started at Brock University, in St Catharines, and hiked about 14.3 km through lots of forest, and along some waterways and a total of five waterfalls.

In the first quarter of this week's hike, we walked on a high gravel embankment around a man-made lake and then into a woods along the Niagara escarpment. Today was a beautiful day for hiking (several of us even sported a little bit of sunburn by the end of the day!) and we were passed along the trail by a jogger, several cross-country cyclists (including an older man - way to go!), and an older couple out for a stroll.

Just before coming out onto the lake, we noticed a few garden- and milk-snakes, and were able to hear a croaking frog: either a Northern Leopard Frog or a Bullfrog (although I didn't think it was deep enough to be a Bullfrog).

Much of the woods we hiked through this week was actually on private property, where the owners of the land had granted permission for hikers to pass through. This first woods was a very nice trail, there were some nice creeks that ran through this area (we had to cross 3 or 4 footbridges), the uphill trails were not unbearably steep... and our fearless leader Blue actually saw a white-tailed deer! We then entered an area of the trail that is also used by Boy Scouts - known as Camp Wetaskiwin. Several sections of the Boy Scout trails had been closed off "for regeneration".

We also witnessed the full cycle of forest life this week - in this part of the trail there was a large fallen tree that was far along in the process of decay, and in the last quarter of this week's hike there was a sign indicating that there were 500 newly planted trees in that section, planted by "13 enthusiastic volunteers".

When we stopped for lunch, we had just re-entered the woods after having walked across an open space. From this vantage point, we could look back at the area through which we had just walked, and notice how far we'd come in a reasonable short time. It was encouraging, although some of us were also starting to notice our sore feet, and our blisters. Luckily, Charlene had thought to bring Band-Aids.

During lunch, several birds were overhead, and we were treated to some nice bird calls. There was a BlueJay, and another bird we couldn't identify (it looked like it had black feathers on top, and white on the bottom, but that could have just been a trick of the sun). We also recently had come across a woodpecker, and a larger bird circling above that may have been a hawk.

Before we came out of this woods and crossed Effingham Rd (county road 28), there was a small creek that ran under the road and trickled down a chasm-like opening. I stopped here to take a picture, and climbed down onto a large rock shelf to get a closer look at the falls. Very lovely.

In the next section of trail we were again walking along the top of the escarpment (with a breathtaking view down below - unfortunately I couldn't capture this properly on film, but to describe it you might say that we were often walking close to the edge of a bluffs). On this stretch, parts of the trail backed onto a couple of farms, and a pair of horses nickered at us. There are fences that cross the path, and we had to climb a "stile" to get over them. After that, we had to climb up another steep hill before coming onto a less densely-forested area where there were giant moss-covered rocks. After this, we came across a family that had camped for the day and were preparing to cook lunch, and then a huge waterfall.

At the end of this week's hike (it's been a really long day, and my memory is starting to get a bit hazy on the order of some parts, so I'll just skip to the end now) was another large waterfall, called Rockway Falls. It's on the edge of the Rockway Conservation Area, and there's a huge side trail that wanders around this area, that I wouldn't mind coming back to hike later. We took a few group photos here, and then loaded back into the car and headed back to Brock University (the drive was interesting too!) to pick up the second vehicle.

Continue on to the next hike (Hike #5)