Spirit Rock Hike

A week ago a friend and I hiked into the Spirit Rock Conservation Area on the Bruce Trail, just north of Wiarton.  We never actually did get to 'Spirit Rock', but we had a great walk and saw some really interesting features of this unique property.

The entrance at the Conservation Area was closed for the season, so we drove around the corner to the view over Colpoy's Bay, where the Bruce Trail crosses the road, and headed south.

We walked in past this beautiful huge old Sugar Maple, and the barn foundation beyond, on an old farm property now owned by the Bruce Trail Conservancy.

We soon came to a small patch of woods that had obviously been grazed in the recent past, not a single sapling or seedling to be seen - even though this is right at the edge of the cliff.  My hiking buddy was really impressed with this big limestone erratic, which he lovingly described as a 'monadnock'.

After a fair walk, we came to a spiral staircase down the cliff!  I'd heard about this, but never seen it and certainly not used it, so it was fun to wind our way down, around two complete circles, to the bottom.  There was still a big chunk of rocky talus slope to work our way down to the shoreline.

The shoreline was spectacular, and the weather was spectacular too, one of the nicest days I can ever remember in November.  The trail follows the shoreline south toward Wiarton, and I got several pictures looking out the bay to the northeast.

Behind us, the limestone cliff towered up against the blue sky.   Spirit Rock is a lookout on this cliff where an Indian maiden is said to have thrown herself to her death when not allowed to marry a warrior from another tribe.

We never got to Spirit Rock because we interrupted our hike to explore the 'Corran', an old stone ruin seen looming through the trees along the trail here.

The Corran was a huge stone mansion, built during the 1880's by Alexander McNeill, and named after his birthplace in Ireland.  As a ruin it has been stablized, and you can wander what were once the rooms of this remarkable house, now standing in the middle of the woods.  I'll give you some details and more pictures tomorrow.

After nearly two hours (my hiking buddy is very good about finding me photographic opportunities), we headed back north to the car, passing by that erratic we saw earlier.  By now the 'monadnock' had morphed into a small field of 'multiple mini-monadnock's' according to my guide (who obviously isn't a geologist!).  But he led us on a great hike, and we'll definitely be going back here.  I still have to see Spirit Rock.

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The Snow Continues

Yesterday's pictures record just a nice dusting of snow, enough to create some interesting patterns in the meadow and garden.  But last night and today we had more serious snow, from 8-12 inches.  It was hard to deal with because the first few hours were such wet snow, leaving a slushy first inch when I tried to shovel it.  But it brought some beautiful winter pictures!

The meadow out back was covered in snow this morning.  And we had alternating snow flurries as the lake-effect streamers blew over, with sunny periods which allowed for great pictures.

The first heavy snowfall over the meadow leaves an interesting lumpy, hummocky pattern, as the snow starts to pack down the standing weeds and grass.  Eventually it will be all flat.

My favourite summer sitting spot with its winter blanket.  Last year the arms of those chairs eventually disappeared under the snow.

And this is the same view of the old stone fencerow that I showed yesterday, buried under 10" of snow rather than decorated with a dusting.

Hawthorn trees seem to catch the snow better than others, with their fine little twigs and tendency to have horizontal branches.

I don't think I ever noticed this view before, catching the shed between the two metal stands that Clematis grows on.

Another bench I rest on sometimes between bouts of weeding in the garden.

The main garden itself is starting to disappear under the white.

And how's this for a late afternoon snow flurry cloud blowing away to the east!

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Spent most of the day either working with the snowblower or snow-throwing shovel, in between taking breaks.  That's one winter chore that I don't enjoy, but it needs to be done.  I'm working on garden pictures from our travels in England, preparing a Life Long Learning Series for this winter.

Winter!

I had something else in mind, but since it's been snowing a few hours now, and this is a blog about the seasons, I thought I'd better give you the pleasure of enjoying some snow pictures - especially those of you in sunny climes where you don't get to see this every day for most of 4 months.  So here's a special winter treat, the early hours of our first real winter storm (even though we had an earlier snowfall back in late October).

The early snow on our fencerow outlines all the big boulders in white.  It had only been snowing very lightly for an hour of two at this point.

 The whole meadow was starting to turn from brown to white, epitomized by this dry stalk of grass.

And there were lots of interesting patterns in the garden as the snow started to accumulate, here on the Buddleia, a far cry from its bright blooms attracting passing monarchs couple of months ago..

Every seedhead of the False Sunflowers was decorated with a small cap of white.

  

And the meadow out back had started its transformation from brown to white, developing a gentle frosty appearance..

I took this comparison shot two hours later, just as the light was starting to fade.  These two are actually taken from the upstairs window; the snow outlines the paths I mow.  But why does this second group of photos have a distinctly blue tone?  I think the light at this season just does strange things.

By this point the snow in the meadow was starting to look a lot more white, like this on the Goldenrods.  It's wet snow that's sticking to everything.

The snow always seems to show off the patterns of the branches in the old Apple trees.    

And the butterfly in our garden now looks white.  The heaviest snow is forecast overnight, and it may continue with renewed lake effect flurries for 2-3 days, so I may get some 'after' photos to show you the accumulation.  Hope you all enjoyed this unique opportunity to see the beauty of winter!

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It's the season for Christmas craft sales, so we headed for Priceville this morning and picked up some of our usual gifts - handmade mitts, Christmas ornaments, and this time some wooden toys.  Of course a county sale like this comes complete with the chance to have coffee and a muffin, or even lunch.  So I get to sit at a table enjoying my coffee and relax, while my wife visits her favourite vendors.  (And every now and then I'm sent out to the car with purchases, or to find more cash).  That's my kind of Christmas shopping!

Hogg's Falls

A few weeks ago, back in October actually, I stopped by Hogg's Falls to check a geocache, and took long enough to snap a few pictures of the falls too.  I've been practicing using slow speeds to get those nice misty waterfall pictures.

This is the usual view of the falls.  It's an easy short walk from the parking lot, and you can safely stand at the top of the falls to get a picture.  It's a straight vertical drop about 20 feet to the ravine below.

But if you're a little more adventurous, you can climb down a short cliff to the stream below.  It's not difficult, as there are shelves in the limestone to step on, and someone has tied a rope that provides a handhold.

Once you're down there you get a view from below the falls.  I didn't take my tripod, so these are all just handheld, and the exposures are 1/4 seconds long.  I'm practicing holding the camera steady enough to enable that, and it works.

I always take more pictures than I need to, but it's fun nonetheless!  There's some interesting history of an old mill built here by William Hogg in the late 1800's.  I'm going to have to read up on that so I can share that story too.

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Changing Skies

It was a blustery day with a cold wind as a Colorado Low blew through Ontario, followed by some arctic air that's dropping the temperature fast into the freezing zone.  We have SNOW forecast for the next four days!  I think our beautiful late fall weather has ended, but we did have beautiful blowing skies today.  Still actually warmish, but cold in the wind.

So I stopped a few places to get pictures of the clouds.  This is the valley, looking north toward Georgian Bay on the horizon, from the top of Talisman Hill, the old chairlift still standing there.

From the same viewpoint, but looking east, you can just make out the cliffs of Old Baldy in the lower right and Sideroad 4 snaking up the far side of the valley.

Close by is this small barn I've pictured several times before.  It stands all by itself out in the field, and appears unused.

But at some time in the past there may have been a homestead among those trees off the road on the left.  Lighting was a challenge for getting pictures today with the sun alternately breaking through, and then disappearing again behind all these clouds - and they were moving fast!

On my way north to Meaford I stopped for this picture.  I often see old fencelines like that one on the left, lined with trees, likely most of them Sugar Maple.  On the right is a small old schoolhouse that is being slowly fixed up as a home or weekend place.

I stopped for a picture of the clouds as I went over the big hill at my favourite viewpoint - that's Georgian Bay in the distance, and Bayview Escarpment cliffs on the left.  At this time of year I find my photos often turn out darker than I'd like them, even though I edit them to lighten them.  With the sun low in the sky the exposures just don't work the way I'd like them to.

And we did make good use of the day, hiking part of the Trout Hollow Trail down the Bighead River valley to Meaford.  With an interested local friend who helped design this trail and knows some of the old history, we learned a lot.  The big lumps of cement on both sides of the river here are the anchors of an old hydro dam from the beginning of the last century.  We saw the remnants of the whole operation, mostly now ruins buried in the bush.  But that's a story for another day.

In contrast, by the time I had driven home, some of those dark gray clouds had blown in and my windshield was spattered with heavy raindrops.  They looked more like snow clouds!

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It's been a remarkably nice two weeks in November, a time of year when we sometimes already have snow on the ground and much colder temperatures.  But not this year!  Warm temperatures, sunny skies, a bonus of two extra weeks of fall, and no excuse not to get all the chores done.  Spent two hours in the garden yesterday, getting a jump on trimming the big plants for next spring.  AND I managed 3 great long walks with friends this week, each with an interesting historical element.  More interesting blog posts to come.

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Walking the Karst

Walked in through the Wodehouse Karst again the other day, just a few days after our traiol clearing workparty.  This time, it was with a friend who had never been in there to see either the sinkholes or the spring down below the cliff - he was fascinated!

We stopped a minute at the depression in the ground that is the basement of the old cabin, still a bit of a stone wall visible, but mostly a jumble of rocks.

And then we came to the stream valley that contains the sinkholes.  We had lots of rain last Thursday and Friday, and there seemed to be more water flowing that a week ago.

When we got to the sinkholes, this was really clear.  Water was pouring down between these boulders, dropped straight down into the crevices beneath.

And the water extended 15 feet beyond the sinkhole I photographed last week, into this cul-de-sac in the clay, vanishing into the limestone below.  I estimated that the flow into each of these sinkholes was about 1 cu.ft/second, quite a bit after the rain we'd had.

We crashed our way through the brush to see the final sinkhole, but the water was pooling over top of it, so you couldn't see any actual sinkhole.  I've never seen the stream without at least a small pool of water here.

Then we took the trail to the back of the old farm, now all grown up in trees.  Never-the-less, there was evidence of early farming, both the stone pile in the foreground and the fallen split rail fence along the trees.

I enjoy finding these bit of evidence of a different landscape in the past, once field and now forest.

To see the spring, we had to climb down this crevice.  It's not as difficult as it looks, and someone has tied a rope to help.

But it's still a very sudden and steep descent between the limestone.

When we got to the trail below, we first walked south to see the smaller spring emerging into this stream.

Then we came back north to the main springs.  The sun was reflecting off all the water, and I had to stand behind this tree to avoid sun flares.  There are actually three places where water emerges from the ground here, on in the lower right, one in the centre  right, and one in the distance.  They all merge quite quickly to form Bill's Creek.

I haven't often see this much water in the creek, presumably from those two rainy days we had.  But we both said that there looks to be much more water emerging here than was disappearing down those sinkholes!  There must be other sinkholes upstream that are contributing to the underground flow.

The water was absolutely pouring out of those springs, and foaming its way down the ravine of Bill's Creek.  What a great walk on a perfect November day that actually felt like September!

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