End-to-End Hike on the Bruce Trail
Changing Approach for the Caledon Hills Section
Having
now completed almost 30% and over 250 km of the BTC (more if you include the
Niagara Recreation Trail) we have begun to move further and further away from
our home base. The result is that we now
need to drive considerable distances to get to and from the trail, and we have
decided to switch tactics. Instead of
driving out for day hikes, we will now be camping and trekking for a couple of days in a row, or camping to participate in organized
end-to-end hikes of entire sections.
The
Caledon Hills End-to-End was our first such event, putting us in the unique
situation of re-hiking a section which we had almost entirely trekked
previously. The first time was with our younger relative, Saryon, and our
constant hiking companion Lenora, during one of our regular weekend get-together
treks. The second time we hiked this
section occurred just a few months later during the Bruce Trail Conservancy End-to-End
event.
Given the
distance to this section from Norfolk County in southwestern Ontario, we
ultimately drove up and spent the night camping at Albion Hills Conservation Area before the End-to-End hike. While it rained a little throughout the night,
by morning it was nice, with some overcast skies and cool temperatures – in
other words, perfect hiking weather.
End-to-End Hike Logistics
With
end-to-end organized hikes the typical approach is a little different than what
someone might do on a thru trek or day trip.
In End-to-End hikes, the BTC tends to set up a central point where
everyone meets each morning and at the conclusion of each day’s trek. From this location hikers are bused to either
the beginning of a section (km 0) or the end of the section, and from there
they hike back to the middle. As a
result, organized events do not tend to proceed south to north or north to
south, yet regardless, by the end of the weekend, one has completed an entire
section. For simplicity's sake, the events we describe in this section over
the next several blogs will nonetheless move from south to north.
Caledon Hills Section End-to-End
Given the
nature of End-to-End organized hikes, the rally point for the weekend was the
beautiful Theravada Buddhist
Temple. This place of meditation was established by
Buddhists escaping from Laos in 1975, and the temple itself was built between
the late 1990s and 2006. Perhaps most amazing for us was how the buildings and
the land had a harmonious feeling to them.
I could easily have spent the day there under the tree canopy, simply
reflecting.
Instead,
we had 26 km of hiking ahead of us on our first of three days of trekking the
full length of the Caledon Hills Section of the BTC. Today would see us trek from Creditview Rd
near the Cheltenham Badlands, down the Devil’s Pulpit, through Forks of the
Credit Park to finish somewhere along St. Andrew’s Road.
Section Hiking Begins
Given the
construction of the new visitor’s Centre at the Cheltenham Badlands, the organized End-to-End instead began on the
roadway along the region’s northern boundary.
What followed was an easy six to eight kilometres of road walking,
during which we boxed north past a number of horse training facilities, riding
schools, and stables. One unique
stretch, known as the Grange, was noted as “an Equestrian Neighbourhood” and
seemed to be comprised of mansions, estates, and stables located on huge
properties with rolling hills and stunning views. After
more than an hour and a half of concession walking, and passing through a
community known as Brimstone, we arrived at the southern boundary of the Forks
of the Credit Provincial Park.
Prior to
entering the Forks of the Credit, the trail followed a steep descent into the
Devil's Pulpit. In some places, this
descent was so challenging it required us to use the installed ropes.
The Devil’s
Pulpit was named for a prominent rock formation in the area and is noted for
its interesting geology and stunning views.
While an attraction for many, we were admittedly more focused on the
long descending staircase through the historic quarry than on the
scenery. As it turned out, our slow pace
and patience paid off as we eventually found a newt! After making such an interesting discovery on
the Bruce Trail, we soon took a photograph and submitted the image to the
citizen science app iNaturalist.
As it
turns out, we found an Eastern Newt, which is also known as the Red-spotted
Newt. It is the most common species of
newt in eastern North America, and the only one in central and southern
Ontario. According to iNaturalist, the
Eastern Newt is frequently found in wet forests under logs or near lakes, ponds,
and streams. They live on insects and
have a lifespan ranging between ten to fifteen years in nature. Apparently, their skin has toxins that make
them poisonous to most predators, and their red spots serve as a visual warning
that they are dangerous to consume.
Forks of the Credit Provincial Park
The Forks
of the Credit region has seen mills, electrical generation stations, railways,
trestle bridges, dams, and the creation and draining of lakes throughout the 19th
and 20th centuries. The region was in fact a busy economic and
industrial center, which also served as a quarry for the unique sandstone that
was used in the construction of Queen’s Park and Toronto City Hall.
Queen's Park, Toronto Ontario - Image from Tourism Toronto
In 1968,
the Niagara Escarpment Study recommended the creation of the Forks of the Credit Provincial Park
which was eventually established in 1985.
The result has been the protection of a wonderful green space for
hiking, waterfall viewing, and nature exploration along the escarpment and
river gorge.
Venturing
northward, the Bruce paralleled and then met the Credit River where it joined
with the Dominion Trail. After this, we
passed a side trail for the Cataract Falls, navigated the valley, and
intersected with the Trans Canada Trail.
Trans Canada Trail
Among a
number of side trails and local pathways that hikers must navigate throughout
Forks of the Credit, one route that stands out is the Trans Canada Trail. Along
the northern boundary of the park the BTC once again intersects with the TCT,
which we first noticed back in Queenston Heights, and again spent time on in
both Hamilton and Dundas Valley. As of
2017, only one person has hiked the entire Trans Canada Trail, which is 28,000
km long (more than 25 times longer than the Bruce Trail) and is the longest recreational
pathway in the world. While such a trek
would last months (if not years) and seems incomprehensible, the possibility of
hiking from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic has begun to fascinate
us.
As a side note, shortly after the conclusion
of our trek along the Bruce Trail, and subsequent to our time trekking some
3000 km across France, Spain and Portugal, we would sell our house, suspend our
careers, and become two of the few people to hike 14,000 km of the Trans Canada Trail from the
Atlantic to the Pacific over the course of 556 days.
To learn more and read a daily accounting of
this adventure, which began with our experiences on the Bruce Trail please
visit www.comewalkwithus.online
Trekking Across Ontario
Beyond
meeting up with the TCT, the Bruce Trail turned south along the ridge and proceeded
along the Meadow Trail, which we followed back to the outskirts of the community
of Brimstone. If you were paying close
attention, you would remember that we had already passed through this sinisterly
named town site some seven or eight kilometres ago.
En route,
we had the opportunity to take a break along the shoreline of Kettle Lake
which, as the name suggests, is a kettle lake. A kettle lake is a geological
feature which was created when large pieces of glacial ice broke off from the
main glacier and slowly melted. This region, where the cliffs of the Niagara
Escarpment meet with the landscape of the Oak Ridge Moraine, has a number of
small kettle lakes.
A Complex Legacy
Throughout
this stretch, we found a BTC sign along the trail describing the Niagara Escarpment
Planning and Development Act of 1973.
Apparently, this was Canada’s first environmental land use plan
dedicated to protecting the unique 725 km Niagara Escarpment, which has since
become part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Ontario Greenbelt. The purpose of these designations was to
protect provincial watersheds, unique geological formations, and the ecological
stability of the region amid the rampant growth of the Greater Toronto
Area.
Yet,
despite such protections, one of the shocking things that we have begun to
notice is that those with the funds are allowed to build and develop throughout
the area – sometimes on an absurd scale.
Indeed, the landscape around us was a testament to this fact, given that
it was dotted with huge mansions, sprawling ranches, and large estates. Today’s
hike in particular ventured down roads with large properties, security guards,
and imposing fences. The result was that
it made us question whether the owners of such estates owned the property or
whether the property owned them. Despite
the development of the region, the debate regarding land use is still clearly
hotly contested. As though to prove the
point about the tensions that the BTC and Greenbelt face, we were accosted by a
local resident who was walking his dog through the Forks of the Credit
today. He complained that we were
supporting “things like the Bruce Trail, which limited his rights and ability
to develop his property”. His choice of
language, and his reliance on profanity to explain his position, marked him as
someone who lacked both creativity and curiosity. Despite his hostility, we thanked him for his
opinion and quietly continued on - stunned that even something as simple as a
trail evoked such hostility in some people.
Unwanted Road Walking
Following
our picnic break at the midpoint in the day’s trek, we pushed on to the
southern boundary of the Forks of the Credit to discover that the Bruce again
returned to the roadway. In fact, it
would turn out that the final nine to ten kilometres of the day’s hike would
see us largely navigating concessions with only periodic detours onto short
sections of the pathway.
Stepping
onto Puckering Lane, we were met with a deluge of No Trespassing, Private
Property, and Video Surveillance signs – simultaneously reminding us of the
kindness of property owners along the BTC, as well as the efforts of local
volunteers who maintain the trail. Throughout this stretch, we began to follow
not the typically white blazes of the Bruce Trail, but evidence of someone
striving to hide the pathway markers.
The result was that this stretch had an odd feel – being both naturally
beautiful and undoubtedly well maintained by those who had moved here to be in
nature, but also as an area that local residents wanted kept exclusive. Ironically – as Sean pointed out – the
removal of the Bruce Trail blazes seemed to have fostered the exact opposite
effect than was desired. Rather than
deterring trail usage, it instead led to people wandering around and trying to
find their own way. Ultimately, it seemed
suitable that people with an attitude like this lived on the aptly named “Puckering
Lane”.
Reflecting on the BTC at Day’s End
Glad to
be beyond this uninviting stretch of mansions, we followed Puckering Lane into
the Escarpment Side Rd, which gave us occasional views of Lake Ontario to the
south and the surrounding pastoral countryside as we walked. The route itself was lined with wooden fences,
behind which playful and curious horses watched the odd procession of hikers
walking past. Depressingly, as the day
wore on and the temperatures got warmer, we began to feel that this section was
essentially a long gravel and dirt road that appeared to endlessly continue off
onto the horizon.
Ten
kilometres and two hours later we turned north onto St. Andrew’s Rd., where our
first day on the End-to-End hike came to a conclusion. The sight of volunteers
cheering all the hikers on, a table of cool drinks and treats, and the sight of
school buses ready to take us back to our parked vehicles were all welcome.
On the
ride back we wondered - Having already walked and now re-hiked this portion of
the BTC was it worth it to revisit regions and trails? The answer, we unanimously agreed, is that
yes, it is definitely worth it to revisit and re-hike a region. Though we knew this area and have experienced
this section before, there was a great deal that we rediscovered, saw with fresh
eyes, or learned en route. (That and we found a Newt!) In the end, each day and each moment spent in
nature presents a new opportunity to be enjoyed!
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