Hike #4

The last long hike I have to share with you was on a stretch of the Bruce Trail north of Old Baldy.  We left one car there and drove north to catch the trail about 4 km. away.  Again, we had a great hike, a good chunk of it on trail I've never walked.

We started out working our way uphill on an old dog's-leg road allowance - though no cars have driven up here for a very long time!

The Beech leaves are drying out to light brown instead of the yellow we've been enjoying.

Fir the first stretch of the trail we were walking along the base of the cliff.  A landowner with a home above the cliff told me a couple of years ago about looking downhill and seeing a black bear amble across in front of him.  So for this hike I actually dug out my bear bell, and wore it, jingling away as we walked past the base of this cliff.

It was another of those beautiful sunny days, with lots of deciduous forest.

And in that habitat along the base of the cliff, there were lots of ferns - here the Northern Holly Fern and the Marginal Woodfern.  Both are evergreen and will stay green under the snow until next spring.

Then the trail headed straight uphill toward the cliff, and we discovered a deep wide crevice.  The trail goes straight up through it.

The forest on top of the cliff, which we followed for the rest of the walk, was quite different.  Here a big White Birch tree.

And in a couple of places there were viewpoints where you could look out over the valley, mostly looking gray now, with no leaves left on the trees.

More deciduous forest downslope of the cliff.

And curled up Beech leaves, drying out fast now.

There are two plaques in honour of significant donors to the Bruce Trail Conservancy along this stretch of the trail.  The last one above, attached in an inaccessible corner of the cliff.  I have no idea how they got it placed there!

Glad I've made so much progress on finishing my goal to hike all the Bruce Trail in the Beaver Valley section.  Just a few more bits to go now.  But we're expecting that white stuff tonight, and I think the beautiful fall hiking season is over now.

Yesterday's Hike, Part 2

Continuing on from yesterday, the remaining highlight of our walk down the east side of the lower valley was a new pair of bridges over Rock Creek.  They were amazing!

This is the first of the two bridges, over 30 feet bank to bank, and very well made if you ask me.

This is the stream they were bridging, a wide shallow channel that used to be crossed by an 'Irish' bridge - stepping stones.

The railing is not only for safety, but helps strengthen the bridge and make it more rigid.

Then I discovered that the 32 Combat Engineer Regiment helped a lot of Bruce Trail volunteers build the bridges.  They are based at the Land Forces Central Area Training Base just outside Meaford, and have helped with other bridges too - it's good training for their troops.

It's actually a beautiful little stream, with very clear water.

But the second bridge was nearly twice as long as the first one!  Nearly 60 feet!  All the lumber for these had to be carried in along the trail, from the nearest point a truck can get to, across adjoining farm fields.  This pair of bridges was a major operation!  And it was all done in three days!

There was still lots of beautiful open deciduous forest to walk through; as you can see, it was up and down hill a lot.

There were still lots of Beech leaves on the saplings.

And then we ended the hike after 3 hours, at Hogg's Falls again.  

Just playing around with water images, as I always like to do.

Lower Valley Road Hike

Slowly catching up on our hikes over the past month, it was Nov. 3rd when we did this hike, down the east side at the very south end of the valley, ending up at Hogg's Falls.  Perhaps you'd like to see a map.

This is the narrow southern end of the Beaver Valley, the red line the Bruce Trail, and the village of Eugenia, with Eugenia Falls, at the upper right.  We hiked from the spot where the trail is on the road briefly to avoid a wetland at km. 57.8, up over the hills on the right hand side of the map down to Hogg's Falls, where the small 'P' is at km. 63.3.  If you know anything about contour lines on maps, you'll recognize that this section of trail is very hilly!  I've already reported on our hike down the west side of the valley where the trail is much less hilly.

We entered a woods with a lot of Eastern Hemlock, on the Lower Valley Road Nature Reserve, which has recently been purchased by the Bruce Trail Conservancy.  It was a long steady climb uphill, through a beautiful woods.

The leaves were down by now, and you could easily see through the woods.  There is enough continuous forest here that there have been reliable reports of Cougar and Cougar tracks in the area.

This was one bench I was glad to see, after that long uphill climb, out into a reforested area that used to be pasture.  A big old Hemlock overlooking the valley.

Surprisingly, this is the view east; the main valley is behind me.  The pattern of glacial deposits and erosion is so complex here that you have smaller inner valleys outside the main valley, as you can see on the map above.

There were a lot of beautiful views through the trees, often straight into the sun.  

We came upon one grove of Beech saplings that was stunning in the afternoon sun!  Beech saplings like this usually grow directly from the roots of a big old Beech tree.  I learned that when I once tried to dig up a sapling to transplant it.

And this is one of those 'no-longer-needed' stiles, the fence completely fallen down.  I was surprised because the stile seemed fairly new, but the fence wire we found on the ground was very old.  Too many pictures to finish this hike in one day, so more tomorrow.

*****

I've had a frustrating two half-days digging out my old plumbing tools to try and fix a tap.  The taps they put in for our washer do not have washers, and cannot be repaired once they develop a leak.  But the tap was soldered directly onto the copper pipe, and there was no shut off valve!  It took four trips to the hardware store, and three different tries to come up with a solution.  I think I finally have it fixed with the magic new shark-byte taps that don't need soldering.  It seems to work, and doesn't leak, but it turns on the copper pipe.  I just don't trust it not to leak!  I think I should have just called a plumber!

Eugenia Falls Hike

The next Bruce Trail hike we did was heading toward Eugenia Falls from the north.  We started at Campbell's Hill, and walked all the way to the falls.  There was a fair bit of up and down hills on this one, somehow it always seems like more uphill than down!  But it was almost entirely through beautiful deciduous woods.

The orange and red Sugar Maple leaves had mostly fallen by the end of October, but the yellow Beech leaves were hanging on, and these woods seemed to have a lot of Beech trees!

We repeatedly commented to each other what a beautiful walk it was, on a warm sunny afternoon, through the beautiful sunlit forest.

The sun slanting in from the west lit the Beech leaves like tiny lights.

These are my favourite types of woods along the Bruce Trail - except for the hills!

Then suddenly we came across this in the middle of the woods!  I wasn't expecting it, though I recognized immediately what it was.  I've seen the other end of this tunnel entrance (3rd photo below), and had a vague idea it was part of an attempt to build a hydro plant 100+ years ago.

The arch was still standing, but it looked liked it might not stand for another 100 years. 

After that it was one of the steeper hills, but we did come out to a nice view over Cuckoo Valley.  A lot of yellow Trembling Aspens among the green Cedars.

Down the very steep hill we went (carefully), and came out at the other tunnel entrance, right beside the falls.  This one seems to be in better shape.

Arriving on the north side of the falls we got an interesting view of the cliffs.  Visitors normally stand at the top of that cliff, so they don't actually get a view of it.  But today the river was only a small trickle you could step over.

A nice sideways view of Eugenia Falls ended our hike.  But my interest in history had been peaked, so I looked up what I could find about the old hydro tunnel.  Here's a picture from the display board in the Conservation Area showing a group of men working on building the tunnel.

Eugenia Falls was recognized early as a potential site for the generation of hydro-electricity, but the site was owned by William Hogg (after whom Hogg's Falls was named.  There was a small hydro plant on the river above the falls, but Hogg's price for the falls itself stalled development for years.  More than one company was formed, started work, and went bankrupt.  Numerous investors lost large chunks of their money.

This tunnel was one of the failed attempts, built by the Georgian Bay Power Company in 1906/07.  It was just under 900 feet long, and would have carried water through the hill beside the falls, then down into the valley to a generating plant.  It would also have required construction of a dam right above the falls, and most of the water flow would have been diverted through the tunnel.  There was widespread debate in the town over losing the beauty of the waterfalls.

But they too went bankrupt, and though the tunnel remained a tourist attraction for years, it was eventually filled in for safety reasons.  The only evidence remaining is these two gates.  The power rights were sold to the Hydro Electric Power Commission, now Ontario Hydro.  A decade later, in 1914, the dam upstream creating Lake Eugenia was built, with pipes carrying water to a hydro plant further north in the valley.  That plant celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2014.  It has the highest head (water drop) of any power plant in Canada east of the Rockies - small but mighty!  And Eugenia Falls has almost never looked the same since!

Outdoor Adventures

I'm falling behind on reporting my hikes this fall.  I've been working hard to finished the Bruce Trail within the Beaver Valley, and the sunny November weather has really helped.  I"ve got about 5 hikes to share, starting with this one which was way back on Oct. 14th, when the fall colours were still around.

This is a section of trail on the east side of the valley, south of the hamlet of Ravenna (home of one of the best coffee/lunch spots around).  We started off into this tunnel of trees in an old fencerow that had grown about 20 feet wide.

We quickly came to a viewpoint over the valley to the west, with all those old farm fields like a patchwork quilt marching up the far slope.

This was the unusual viewpoint - a bench built up on a 2' high platform.  Never seen one like this before.

And this was one of the most unusual blazes I've seen along the trail.  A 6" cyllinder painted white, and hanging from an outer branch over the trail.  Quite clever I thought.

More tunnels of trees, here a line of Basswoods reaching out for the light.

And then we headed uphill and came out along the edge of a ploughed field.  We got a great view north over Georgian Bay.

And shortly after, another valley view to the west.

Lots of old cedar rails, these four covered in moss, highlighted in bright green by the sun.

And then we came to this sign.  I had heard of the discovery of this short stretch of the Old Mail Road, which still exists as a tractor trail through the woods here.  A pioneer trail, it ran about 20 miles diagonally across country from Duntroon to Griersville, and only three concessions of it remain as gravel roads.  But this is a hidden section in the woods further southeast.  A short bit of the Bruce Trail was rerouted here to highlight the history.

And here is the Old Mail Road today, a trail through through the woods.

At this point the trail passed through quite a long and beautiful section of deciduous forest.  As you can see, in mid-October, it was still mostly green.

But we got to the edge of the woods, and found a beautiful Sugar Maple in brilliant orange.

The last section of the trail was along the fence through a pasture, and we could look over to see the cattle mostly just standing or resting.  I thought this guy with his white mask was kind of neat.

And we finished at another stile over the final fence.  On this hike there were several stiles still in use, because they were over fences keeping cattle in.  I often find older ones that serve no further function as the fences they covered have fallen down!  Lots of aches and pains for me after a hike like this (about 4 km), but I think I'm getting able to handle the hiking more easily.

And still another beautiful November day today.  Got almost the last of the fall chores done today as the lawn tractor came back, with the mower deck removed and the snowblower attached.  That enabled me to store several things like tires and chairs away, and we can now get the cars in the garage if we have to!  We're almost ready for winter - but hoping this great weather continues instead!