End-to-End Hike on the Bruce Trail - Cheltenham Badlands to St. Andrews Rd

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 19^th and 20^th 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 556 days.  

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 to be 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 had 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!

See you on the Trail!