Bruce Round 4 - Epic Steps

Hey i just found this in my drafts!!!! SORRY!!

So here we are at yet another Bruce Trail adventure! This is our fourth hike log for our fourth hike which took place September 18.

It all started in little Guelph, Ontario. Population 120,000. After a quick stop at the super market for some meat sticks and trail mix, we left the Bux (Starbucks, that is) at 1:27pm with Chai Lattes and our hiking gear. Drew led the way in the Big ol' Truck while Kattina and I followed in the Camrymobile.

Less than an hour after leaving we arrived at Kinsmen Park in Lincoln to drop the car off at the end point, have a wizz, check our gear, and enjoy a little bouldering session.

We chilled here for 20 minutes and arrived at the Staff Ave lot at 2:58. We snapped a quick shot of our start point and hit the trail!

Now, Staff Ave. is home to Staff Estates Winery (http://www.staffwines.com/) and the Staff Estates Winery makes the whole road smell like grape juice in mid September. It smells like Welch's grape juice. It invokes memories of being told to use two hands on my big kid cup and it almost made me cry!

Turning right onto Seventeenth St. we had an incredible view of Toronto while we followed the trail up the road for a little over a kilometer singing "On the Road Again" all the way. This was until Kattina had a terrific find with a Monster Energy can on the side of the road! For those of you in the know, Monster Energy is doing a throwback to good marketing by offering consumers free clothing if they mail in x amount of Monster Energy tabs. It's true! http://www.monsterenergy.com...%20see/ ... See?

We got back into the forest pretty quickly and enjoyed some easy going path. The hills were subtle and the forest quiet. My theory is the last 2 weeks of cold have sent all the bugs away save for a few crickets and some moths. Regardless, we were pumped to be there!

As we crossed Nineteenth St, I noticed a group of people gathered around what looked like a one hole roadside putt putt. We ignored it because we were more interested in hiking while eating some Euro Pepperettes but also we were a little wary of the shifty looking shifter who appeared to running the putt putt (had we checked his backseat, there's a 75% chance he was carrying some deceased (mini golfers).

While heading towards Ball's Fall Conservation Area, make sure you are aware of THE ENORMOUS HILL! This is the title I have given the 75degree hill that takes you up to the path leading to Ball's. This HILL is steep and high!I think my ears popped in the middle of the ascent. We did make it though! and once we were finished we were happy to discover two wonderful benches at the top of the hill. Thanks sponsors!

We approached Ball's Falls Conservation Area (named after the Ball family of years past) and we noticed something a little strange. There were white tents set up everywhere with tables inside them. These tents were not big enough to house an event (like a wedding) or anything substantial. The main theory was that there was perhaps an up and coming trade show or something. Regardless, the empty tents and quiet park were actually really creepy!

After our skin stopped crawling from realizing we had entered a ghost town, we noticed something really sad. All of the water was gone! There was nothing! I had seen photos of the 20 Mile Creek and the Upper and Lower Falls and they were magnificent! This was pitiful.

It was honestly the same story everywhere we went; no water. Bridges were built over flat rocks. Waterfalls were diminished to cliffs. Apart from the unique opportunity to possibly climb Ball's Falls, it was a sad state of affairs for Niagara rivers.

Another unique opportunity was the one already being taken advantage by a bride and her party. They were on the edge of the falls having their photos done! We shouted a hello and we walked on to find another bride and groom posing on a hill. "No way! Two weddings in the same park", said we. But then to our surprise, a third bride emerged near the footbridge!!!! I was secretly hoping all three would see eachother a the same time and instantly go red with rage and have a battle! There would be bridesmaids with switchblades and groomsmen yelling "Sweep the leg!", while the grooms enjoy the sangria they left in the limo and talk about their new living situation. Photographers battling for the best shots while their assistants desperately try to aim the big silver reflector thing in the right direction. Limo drivers glaring at eachother while holding bouquets. Bride number 1 rolls out of dustcloud with a high heeled shoe sticking out of where her eye used to be. She breaks off the shoe and leaves the heel dangling from her eye socket. She spits blood onto the ground and dives back in. Bridesmaid Sally is being used as a human shield by her bride and has 5 broken ribs. She keels over and comes up with a handful of dirt and throws in the eyes of Bride number 3! Bride number 3 turtles and is trampled in the ongoing melee! A hand she reaches for it and a warmth fills her. She is dragged quickly but gently out of the brawl and she stands before a lion. It's Aslan. He smiles at her in his lion way and cocks his head to the right. She is in awestruck amazement. He uses his giant soft paw to gently touch her face and wipe the blood from her ear hole. She smiles a timid smile. As his paw comes down, his claws emerge and he rips her face off and begins to eat her before jumping into the melee to break it up/eat people...But I digress.

So we walked over the bridge that spanned 20 Mile Creek and began downstream enjoying the sight of the peach orchard on the left and the gorge of Ball's Falls on the right. We quickly found a clearing that landed us on the edge of a cliff with a conveniently placed fire pit. Drew had a hankering for some fire and he was all too excited to use his latest MEC purchase of fire starters. And boy did they start fires! Here we enjoyed the view and the PB&J wraps Kattina had brought along.

After a little rest and some food, we were back on the trail.

Another kilometer yielded another noteworthy location. we emerged from the forest onto a gravel driveway and quickly noticed a large enclosure/compound. through the fence we could see bunnies and chickens and pigeon and after a few snapshots we were quickly greeted by a friendly dog named Cody. He barked and barked and barked! He lived with the goats on the hill and made a point to run down the hill and greet the hikers. The next house had a front yard filled with unique rabbit enclosures and delightful, future delicious white bunnies. I say future delicious because there was nothing to indicate the owner was a magician.

We rounded onto Fifth Ave and saw yet another magnificent view of Toronto. This time we stopped for a quick photo sesh before heading back into the woods. We walked by a soybean field and turned on the focus juice.

See, focus juice is what you turn on when you realize you are very behind schedule, you're tired, and you're running out of light...So focus juice is what we turned on.

For the rest of our hike we were pushing for the end! No time to rest. Just hike.

We stopped once on the lawn of a big white Victorian style home for a few minutes but then booted it to Kinsmen Community Park and finished strong with a sprint to the car!

We headed off to Burlington for the Papa Luigi's special at Gator Ted's where we took in the Mayweather vs. Ortiz match with dropped jaws and locked legs. If you have not seen that fight yet, find it and watch it...or at least read about it.

Distance: 17.1km
Time: 6hours 37minutes
Lesson Learned: 1) Very salty, European style pepperettes only serve to dehydrate you and make your fairly simple hike seem like a desert adventure where every turn is the car (your oasis).

2) Sleep is very important before a big hike. Kattina and I were both up past midnight and up at 7am. Definitely not sufficient for serious physical output!

3) Climate change sucks! We want the rivers back!!!

4) The table at the Red Brick Cafe that I am currently using to type this, is terrible! It is the wobbliest, loudest table ever. Well, maybe not ever...but it's pretty bad!

5) Bring extra water. And then pack extra extra water.

We loved this section of trail. We plan to finish the Niagara section of trail on our next hike. We also plan to start a petition to get a End to End Badge for the Niagara section of the Bruce considering it is the only section of trail without an End to End Badge...so come on Bruce, what gives?

Until next time,

Love Zach + Kattina + Drew + Bruce

The Truth About Needs

Little article for the upcoming edition of The Voice...enjoy

When I was invited to contribute to this issue of The Voice and discuss Needs, I went home and I googled, 'What do I need?' (mostly for some material rather than an actual curiosity).

I was instantly given 2,350,000,000 results (!). The majority of these responses were questions like "What do I need to be happy?", there was information about crossing the US/Canada border and tons of quizzes, my favourite one being called "Do You Need Therapy?"

All in all this google search was useless and apart from discovering I may need therapy, it was a total waste of time.

Anyways...Today the word 'need' has become terribly misused.

We use 'need' to justify.

It comforts us because we can insert it in a sentence just before the thing we are going to buy to make sure it's okay. "I need a new _____", "I'm going out because I need ________".

How close are these statements to reality? Or how true are these statements?

What do we really need? I suppose the answer is relative to who you ask and I guess it's equally relative to when you ask them. But if we get down to the basic human question of "What do we need as humans?", then I guess the answer to what do you need is relative to what you want to be...

For basic humans, we want to be alive.

Living.

Not dead.

To accomplish this continued state of living, we would need oxygen, clean water, and food. That's it really.

But it's really not it. Ask anybody who has these three basic things what they need and you won't hear food, water, oxygen.

Maybe it's a Canadian or North American thing where we are constantly creating new needs for ourselves.

I do it all the time. I was just looking at new hiking packs and chose to save the $100 after asking, "do I need this?" Yes it's more comfortable, yes it is newer, yes it is bigger, but do I need it? Naw.

I want to put a bigger speaker system in my car so my bass can be bumpier. It's about $200 which is affordable. But do I need it? Nope.

Honestly, after our basic needs our met, what more do we actually need?

Not too much.

I'll use myself as an example. I'm a 21 year old who's married. I live in the North East end of the city in a basement apartment.

I need food and water and oxygen. My lungs are in good working order, so oxygen is taken care of. Water comes out of the taps that are included in my rent each month, so that's taken care of. My wife and I require jobs that generate income in order to purchase healthy food. We each have jobs at opposite ends of the city. I now have two jobs at opposite ends of the city.

We have a car. I think we could probably say we need this to get to our jobs to get the money to get the food to survive. And we wear clothes so we can keep our jobs considering they require us to have a clean criminal record.

So we have

• home/shelter
• income
• car
• food
• water
• clothes
• +

Now the plus category is stuff. I say stuff because really, that's all it is. Furniture, electronics, books, kitchenware. It's all stuff. It's stuff that we continue to acquire and upgrade and dispose of and repeat! Recently I have begun to think more about our stuff and have been seriously considering living in an RV or something similar. If you ask my wife, that will never happen.

In thinking of my "needs", I am always brought back to a little photograph on my fridge. It's a special photograph. It is a photograph of a little boy named David Ederson Paraguay Quispe. He's a little Peruvian kid we picked out of a bunch. He is our Compassion Child and the money that invisibly comes out of our bank each month provides him with clean water, food, education, medicine and other necessities for a kid.

I think of people like David and I think of families like his and I think about the things I claim to need, and I get a little bit upset. Maybe it's more uneasy than upset. But I start to feel crappy. I mean here I am, typing on a $2000 computer what could've been written on a piece of 3 ring lined.

My life is easy and convenient and abundant. When I put myself beside David, I am too rich. I have too much stuff. How do I know?

I know because my 'need' for a new computer

and my 'need' for nice shoes

and my 'need' for a new DVD

and my 'need' for another book

and my 'need' for a big car

and my fake, callous, selfish "NEEDS" are just silly, self centred wants in disguise.

My wants have mingled with my needs and become like them. And now my "needs" are more important than David's and my "needs" have allowed me to let others go without. And not even others across the world but even others in my own city.

Now a few hours ago I posted on facebook, "Quick! Don't Think! just answer this question, "what do you need?". I had 6 responses from 4 people and the one that stood out was one from an old friend from college, his response was "first thing that popped into my head when I read your question was "Jesus!"".

And I agree.

We all need Jesus.

I need Jesus to remind me that others don't have what I take for granted and others NEED to come before my luxuries.

After all, there is one who will say "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

So ask yourself,

"What do I need?"

"What do I want?"

"At what cost?"