Along the Stream

On our Christmas Day Walk, which I wrote a bit about earlier, we hiked a section of the Bruce Trail that ends up following a beautiful tumbling stream down a ravine.  In fact, there are two streams, which come together near the bottom of a long slope, and with the streams, two waterfalls.

The upper waterfall is quite striking.  Pouring over the upper Amabel Dolomite cliff, the stream emerges beneath a chalet, and then tumbles down the slope over ledges of bedrock.  At any other season it would be partially hidden (and the chalet would not be allowed under today's tighter planning rules).

I always think it's a remarkable series of bedrock ledges that forms the waterfall.

It levels out somewhat, and starts carving a deeper ravine through the shale, the next layer of bedrock - while still tumbling over some stepping-stone ledges.  The adventurous, energetic five-year old with us had to be watched pretty closely here!

Its course downstream is interrupted by another geological layer, the Manitoulin Formation, that creates the second waterfall, almost entirely covered in moss.  I like this photo, which I managed on shutter-priority, for a 1/3 second exposure at 100 ISO, but just hand held.

The trail twists around, goes back uphill a minute, and then crosses the smaller stream on a series of stepping stones.  Then it follows the steep slope downhill on the slopes of the ravine formed by this stream.

At this point both streams are carving through the Queenston Shale Formation, leaving these typical steep slopes.

With more bedrock ledges forming steps for the stream.

Near the bottom the streams join, and the trail follows along above them on the slope.  Trying hard here for one of those 'slow' water shots.

We crossed the stream on a bridge, and followed it further til the trail turned uphill and out to a small parking lot.  The stream tumbles further down the lower slopes until it joins the Beaver River.  It was a great hike with my son, my son-in-law, and our 5 year old grandson.

****

It was the big storm that never amounted to much here!  We sat in the evening listening to the ice pellets bounce off the windows for several hours, while the wind howled around the cabin, seemingly coming from all sides.  At any moment I thought a branch will break somewhere, and the lights will go out.  But they didn't, and I didn't read of any major outages in the news this morning.  There were lots of fender-benders in Toronto of course, but that's more about stupid drivers than the weather!  We only got an inch or two of icy snow.

Here the temperature rose to above freezing, and the slippery layer of ice on the deck and the car (I forgot to put it in the garage...) this morning melted away.  I waited for a break in the rain before walking the dog, and managed a good hour walking through to the farm next door.  I'm walking there a lot these days; tomorrow I'll share some pictures of their amazing stone fences.  But I did find out that crunching through 2 inches of semi-frozen slush makes for hard work.  I could have worn my lighter fall jacket.  My coat stayed open, and my gloves came off half-way.  But we got in our hour of cardio.
   

Linking to: