Hike 39: Rigours of the Bruce Trail - High Dump to Cyprus Lake

Climbing Out and Setting Off

Sleeping last night was extraordinarily refreshing.  Situated on a camping platform at the base of the Niagara Escarpment, and only a short distance from the shoreline of Georgian Bay was very peaceful.  The only sounds throughout the night were the calls of loons and the gentle rolling grind of the rocks on beach as the waves slowly shifted them. As the sun lit up the sky and the side of the tent I just wanted to snuggle further down into my sleeping bag and stay forever. 

Today our goal seemed so simple, to make our way from the High Dump Campsite toward the main campground at Cyprus Lake at the heart of Bruce Peninsula National Park.  This is a distance of only 12 kilometres of so, which given yesterday’s experiences, we assumed meant that we might well walk into Cyprus Lake around noon or slightly afterwards.  How wrong this estimation would turn out to be...

Climbing out of our tent and striving not to fall off the raised camping platform while slipping on my hiking boots, I made my way to the rack where we had hung our food bags last night, and began to make breakfast.  As I did this Sean filtered water from Georgian Bay and the teenager in our hiking troop deflated and rolled up our sleeping pads and stuffed the sleeping bags into their sacs.  After 30 minutes of effort on all of our parts, we had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, water for the morning, and our sleeping system packed.  By 8:30 we had packed down the tent, refilled our backpacks, and began the steep trek up the escarpment to return to the Bruce Trail. 

Back on the Bruce Trail

 “The Section between km 134.6 and km 145.2

is considered to be the most challenging hiking along

the entire length of the Bruce Trail.  Be Prepared!”

Bruce Trail Guidebook, Edition 28, 41-1

Having rejoined the main route of the Bruce Trail at the top of the escarpment, and now doubly grateful for the installed ropes, we took a moment to catch our breath.   Feeling ready, we continued onward, slipping  and sliding along the uneven landscape as we made our way upward.  The trail eventually brought us to a lookout, which revealed just how far below the trail the High Dump camping area had been, and how shear the drop to the forest and waters below were.

What followed from this point onward has, in my mind, become a long blur of uneven rocky terrain that gave way to some of the most challenging footing, exhausting hiking, and slippery conditions that we have ever encountered.  Entire stretches had little that could be termed as flat in any way.  Every step was either up or down, and many rocky ledges were nearly waist high on me.  Random scattered rocks and the uneven or pitted limestone littered the pathway.  In addition, the trail wove precariously along the edge of the escarpment.  Even the lookouts provided little reprieve as there was no cooling breeze to keep the summer temperatures in check.  While there was incredible beauty to be seen along the coastline at the various outcroppings, the amount of energy required to hike to them under full pack weight meant that we each spent more time enjoying the fact that we were not moving for a few minutes, rather than appreciating the region’s natural splendour.  

If truth be told, we spent much of this section of the BTC watching our footing and being worried about tripping, twisting an ankle, or falling over the edge of the escarpment.  Half the time I worried about myself, and the other half I spent terrified that one of my companions would be hurt.  On the rare occasions that the trail pulled inland, the terrain only seemed to get tougher.  Whereas yesterday’s hike from Mountain Trout to High Dump was literally a walk in the park, today’s endeavour was a back-country trek that made us earn every foot of trail. 

Endurance Test : High Dump to Halfway Dump

There is a trite phrase “saving the best for the last...”.   What came over the next 6+ hours of hiking may have been naturally beautiful, and given way to some of the best panoramic views on the Bruce Trail, but it was also a situation in which the trail had saved the hardest for the last.

In many ways, tough terrain is nothing new on the BTC.  After all, there has been a lot of challenging sections from Queenston Heights onward, which had steep elevation gains, pathways covered with loose rocks and tree roots, as well as rocky crevices before.  However, this region was unrelenting, physically demanding, and mentally exhausting.  Even the always reliable Bruce Trail blazes seemed to want little to do with this section, being placed further and further apart and being harder and harder to find as we moved deeper in the national park.

Ultimately, it was only some hidden well of mental stamina that kept each of us going – had any of us been focused on our bodies in this stretch I earnestly believe that we would still be out there.  It is as though the Bruce Trail tossed up one final challenge before our arrival to the northern terminus in Tobermory – a location which this morning seemed to be only a mere 30 kilometres away, but which later in the day might as well have been on the other side of the world.  The end of our hike along the Bruce Trail was certainly no easier – and in fact it seemed much tougher – than the beginning.

Is This It? Arriving at Halfway Dump

Perhaps the first light of hope that I had after four and a half hours of climbing and scrambling was when I saw a sign some 50 feet in front of us on the trail.  Given the amount of effort we had expended, the length of time we had been on the trail, and the level of exhaustion I was experiencing, I made the monstrously incorrect assumption that we had at long last arrived at the turn off for the Cyprus Lake Campground!

Unfortunately, and to our utter horror, as we got closer we saw that we were only at Halfway Dump, having covered a mere 6 kilometres.  This was only half the distance we had to hike today.  My God!  With this realization I couldn’t even look at the others for fear that I would either break down crying or see their despair.  Standing with shaking legs at Halfway Dump, I simply couldn’t take on anyone else’s disappointment or exhaustion. 

Tired and uncertain, we followed the short side trail 50 meters off the main BTC route down to the boulder beach of Halfway Dump on the shores of Georgian Bay.  Like other sites in the park, Halfway Dump is an area previously used by loggers at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, where timber was brought to the water’s edge for shipping.  Historically, it was named Halfway Log Dump as an access point to Georgian Bay, where cut logs could be “dumped” until collected and towed to a local lumber mill.

With our backpacks off, and sitting on the rocky beach, we all silently gulped down our water – draining the bottles we’d filled this morning.   Realizing that we might be in trouble if the terrain continued with these conditions, I admit we considered simply stopping there for the day.  With no cell coverage we couldn’t even try to change our reservations, but we wondered if a ranger would actually check the area.  Maybe be if they did they might simply take pity on us and either let us stay or drive us to Cyprus Lake?

For the first time since leaving Owen Sound, I earnestly doubted that we could get to our destination in a single day.

Continuing along the Coastline

With no real options open to us, and realizing that our discussion sounded increasingly as though we were making up excuses, after 30 minutes of rest, we all stood up and staggered on.  I have no doubt that we were each silently praying that the next 6 kilometres would be easier. 

This however was not to be the case.  Most of the trail from Halfway Dump onward followed the cliff edge, frequently giving hikers access to a number of ledges along the way, each of which afforded views along the peninsula and coast line.  The route demanded that we watch our feet the entire time as we manoeuvred from rock to rock, as the path put us closer and closer to the edge of the escarpment on increasingly precarious ledges.  At one point we arrived in a place marked on our map as Cave Point Lookout.  Here, at the pinnacle of the escarpment, we again took the opportunity to stop hiking for a few minutes and rest.  From this location onward the trail descended steeping over the undulating and rocky terrain. 

Please Let this be It! Arriving at Storm Haven

An hour and a half after leaving Halfway Dump – about the length of time we could normally have walked around 6 kilometres - we again saw Bruce Trail and National Park signs.  My heart leapt!  This had to be it!  We had to have arrived at the entrance to Cyprus Lake.    I think we all needed the day to be done.  I wanted to stop hiking, I needed to be done. 

Unfortunately, after shuffling up to the signs, we discovered that we had arrived at Storm Haven -   a distance of only 3 kilometres from Halfway Dump, and a distance of 3-4 kilometres from the Cypress Lake campground!

My God how much slower could we be go?  How had it taken us so long to trek 9 kilometres since setting out this morning?

It was at this point, under the excuse of going to the washroom, that I walked off from the others and broken down in tears. Sitting on the ground I pulled the BTC map out of my pocket to check the distances – on paper it all looked so short and simple.   Were we walking in circles?  Had we gotten detoured or lost?  No and no.  It was soul crushing.

Nonetheless it had taken us 90 minutes to hike the width of two fingers on the map.  I know that sounds illogical, and it is, but that is all I could think of at that point.   But that wasn’t the worst of it – we were still 3 fingers away from Cypress Lake Campground!  At this rate – if we could physically make it – we would arrive at the campground in 3-4 hours.  Oh my God.  With this realization my body began to shake, and I broke down into tears again.  I had nothing left to give this trail today. 

Thirty minutes later, with Sean and our young relative calling out my name, afraid that I had either gotten lost or been bitten by a snake, I quickly cleaned up my face and walked on to the beach to find them sitting on the rocky cairns that supported Storm Haven’s food hanging rack at the campsite.  At one point, clearly not caring about whether his shoes and feet were wet, the junior member of our troupe took off his pack and stood calf deep in the water to cool off.  After everything we had gone through today on the trail, neither of us could blame him.  Find comfort where you can, so that you have it in you to carry on.

After some time we again filtered water and refilled our bottles before continuing.

Shuffling On, Hiking On: Storm Haven to Horse Lake

Shuffling onward we left Storm Haven with “only” 2 kilometres to go before the turn off to Cypress Lake Campground.  From Storm Haven the trail widened out some and was somewhat less rocky, but for three weary hikers it was still a challenge.  About a kilometre down the path, the BTC descended to and followed along a stunning boulder beach, tracing the shorelines of Georgian Bay.  While this stretch is indeed beautiful, it was also incredibly frustrating and hard to hike along.  Our tired legs simply did not have the stability left in them to walk the rounded and slippery terrain well.

Here I have to say that while in theory the notion of “strolling” along a pebble beach sounds wonderful, relaxing, and scenic, there is no denying that the realities of the terrain made things incredibly challenging.  Moving quickly was simply not practical or possible. Thankfully however, long stretches of the beach had been flatted into more manageable trough-like pathways.  My only firm memory of trekking the slippery rocks and boulder beaches is that of our young companion, who kept mumbling under his breadth “sure why not, why not make us do more and more and more…”.  Whether he was talking about us or about the Bruce Trail I don’t know.  What I will say, however, is that sometimes the attitudes of teenagers are annoying, but sometimes they are dead honest, and cut through the crap. This was the latter.

A Juncture in the Trail

Still staring at my feet, hoping that they would keep moving forward, I heard Sean call out “this is it!”  Looking up, I saw the sign we had been looking for all day – indicating that we were at the juncture for the Horse Lake Trail toward Cyprus Lake Campground.  It was one of the greatest feelings of relief I have ever experienced!

My first thought was that “we will not be stuck on this trail any longer”.  My second thought was “but we still have 20 kilometres more to go tomorrow to get to Tobermory!”  And my final thought was “who cares you are nearly done for today!  Tomorrow is tomorrow!”

Turning off the Bruce Trail and following the wide, level, and easy Horse Lake Trail felt wonderful!  I smiled for the first time in hours. 

Horse Lake Trail and Cyprus Lake Trail

Tracing the shorelines of Horse Lake and then Cyprus Lake were wonderful – for the first 10 minutes.  The rugged and unrelenting nature of the Bruce Trail since High Dump faded amid the refined and leisurely pathways of the National Park.  We could again walk without watching the ground the entire time.  Taking each step no longer required us to either heave our full pack weight over or down from a rocky outcropping. It was heaven.

While we have visited both Bruce Peninsula National Park and Fathom Five National Marine Park on several occasions in the past – and immensely enjoyed them both – this is the first time we have arrived by foot and at the tail end of an 800+ kilometre hike.   All I can say is that walking into an area gives you an entirely new perspective and sense of a region, as well as those enjoying it.    And so it was, as we began to get excited about stopping for the day, enjoying ice cream from the park store, and sitting at our campsite, that we encountered our final challenge for our thru-hike– the hordes of day trippers and weekend campers shuffling down the trail toward us.

And so, our final few hundred meters gave way to us having to step off the trail as people strolled past hauling coolers full of beer in wheeled carts.  We watched in bewilderment as others trudged by, looking at their phones, or listening to music turned up to full volume on radios they carried with them.  We were horrified to encounter several separate people who freely and without thought tossed their Tim Hortons cups and empty beer bottles into the shrubs beside the trail.  We were dumbfounded as people walked 2 and 3 abreast across the width of the entire pathway, refusing to allow anyone else to pass.  After two people commented loudly on the state of our appearance, and how sweaty we were, I was no longer sure whether to be jealous of their relaxed nature and freedom to enjoy the environment without a heavy backpack on, or to be frustrated with their attitude in the midst of such a naturally beautiful region. 

In the end, stuck behind two people out on a day hike, who gave no quarter to anyone else walking to the campground, it took us an exhaustively slow 45 minutes to traverse the short distance from the shoreline to our campsite.  The entire situation, and what we witnessed in park visitors during that final stretch, has forever changed how I think about people engaging with nature in provincial and national parks.

Cyprus Lake Campground

Traversing the southern shores of Cyprus Lake, I checked our reservation number and we made our way directly to our site.  The route was easy, but it was stunning for us to see so many people after hiking mostly in isolation for long stretches over the course of our thru-hike.   The final approach to our campsite was almost surreal.  Clean, well-dressed people stopped to watch us as though we were from another planet.  One man laughed at us, commenting loudly that we did not need to take the kitchen sink to go to the Grotto…Sigh. 

Finding our campsite, we each unceremoniously dropped our backpacks off our backs and sat down at the picnic table….we were done.  Utterly, physically and mentally done.  None of us wanted to move.  Indeed, it was only 20 minutes later when a Parks Canada warden walked up and told us to immediately leave the site because it had been reserved for the night that we did anything.  Initially, I was stunned and disheartened.  My mind raced.  Had I been mistaken with the site number?  Had I made our reservation for another date?  What would we do if we didn’t have a campsite for tonight? 

Then, when we didn’t immediately respond, the kindhearted officer asked us if we had just come off the Bruce Trail and asked our names.  He then called in to the park office and smilingly clarified that the site was reserved for us!  Thank you, God!  Unfortunately, it also meant that I still had to walk out to the Park office on the road and check in.  Why or why? Hadn’t we given enough of ourselves today?  We knew the site was for us, Parks Canada knew the site was for us, why did we need a piece of paper confirming all of this?

And so, despite arriving to the campsite, our day of walking was apparently still not done.  The site was in my name, reserved with my credit card, and so it was I who had to walk out to the Park office.   As such, while Sean and our young companion set up our campsite and unpacked our gear, I stumbled, bone weary, to the Park Office to show ID and check in. 

Standing at the office I asked, actually I begged, to see if there was any way we could camp for another night or two?  The costs didn’t matter, the issue of whether or not we needed to switch campsites wouldn’t matter either.  I just didn’t want to walk anywhere for a while. 

While standing there with the attention of a Parks Canada official, I also sought to get as much information about the coming 20 kilometres of pathway between Bruce National and Tobermory as I could.  Their answer was joyous to hear – the trail was reputed to be much, much easier to the north!  Adding to this wonderful news was the fact that the Parks Canada staff figured out how we could stay for a couple more days, which meant that we could rest for a day, and then had the option of completing our final hike to Tobermory while leaving our backpacks and gear here in the park at our campsite! 

Having checked in, I arrived back at the campsite to discover our tent up and our hiking clothes being hand washed and hung to dry.  Throughout the evening we mixed hydration tablets into our water for flavor, made a dinner of what remained of our backpacking meals, and generally sat at the picnic table without saying much. With little energy left, long before sunset, and regardless of the activity around us in RVs and camper vans, we all crawled into our tent and fell asleep, grateful to have gotten here by day’s end.

Hubris and Achievement

Reflecting on today’s hike I have an admission to make...

Last night I thought that we were cheating by taking two short days, and partially wished that we had pushed on.  Today, it took about 2 hours of hiking over the undulating, rocky, and unrelenting pathway, navigating the coast far above Georgian Bay, to realize my error.  If the last couple of days were easy, then today took the effort of two days to stumble and trek slowly along the Bruce Trail from High Dump to Cyprus Lake. The distance from where we began to where we are this evening is 12 kilometres – I don’t think we could have gone much further if we had had to.

The section of the Bruce Trail between High Dump, Halfway Dump, and Storm Haven is considered to be the most challenging hike along the entire length of the Bruce Trail – and rightfully so.  Much of this stretch is one which unendingly alternates between trekking along uneven escarpment ledges and navigating across cobble and boulder beaches.  Had we begun our thru-hike in Tobermory, I would have feared that the rest of the trail was like today. 

I can only say that I hope the 20 kilometre hike from Cyprus to Tobermory is not as challenging.  I feel like tonight we have earned the completion of the Peninsula section and the Bruce Trail.