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

Bruce Round 3 - Back Packing and Back Tracking

The third hike log is finally here! We have been killing the trail (not literally of course)!

For those of you who are new here, Kattina and I are attempting to complete the Bruce Trail End to End. Now we're not doing all of this at once, but going out to the trail and coming home each time.

August 26th is when we started our third leg.

Now we had a lot more stuff this time because we had planned to sleep in the bush. One of these stuffs was a Magellan GPS that Brother Drew gave us after he replaced it. We hung it to our pack and set out. For the first 4 km, everything went smoothly. Shortly after this we attempted to check our stats and found that we had travelled no less than 18km...in less than 2 hours. That's right, we pwn! So needless to say we abandoned that method of logging stuff and we just had to jot stuff down based on the time (we're working on this folks).

So anyways, here we go! Tripblog #3

We arrived at Brock University at about 6:45pm and started hiking at 7:30. We had a few hiccups with gear which delayed our departure slightly, but hey, we still got out of there with some light.

8:10pm - We came accross 3 White Tailed Deer eating their supper not far from Brock University. They spotted us as we tried to snap a few shots of them and took off a few minutes later. The low light wasn't great with the zoom lens and we didn't yield great results.

Shortly after this, we were walking toward Lake Moodie and noticed a fantastic sign on the fence that read 'Caution, Crossing this fence may result in drowning'. Other signs so far have included, 'Shooting Range Do Not Enter', and 'Beware of Flying Golf Balls'.

8:25 - We arrived at Lake Moodie in the knick of time to catch an awesome sunset and a freaky bird! We also realized at this point that we were all out of blazes and had missed a switchback a hundred metres ago...Back track number 1. we found our way and kept up the pace.

8:30 - Little run in with a bat. Nothing to worry about. Forward.

8:40 - Time for the headlamps!

9:10 - We emerged once again at Lake Moodie but this time with a gravel path to follow. We had a clear view of the stars and and a great time just chatting together. We didn't even need our lamps; the stars and moon did all the work. I'd have to say this was probably one of the best parts of the trip. It took about 45 minutes to get back into the forested part of the trail after rounding the lake.

10:20 - We thought it was time to stop for a bite and we happened to find this AMAZING giant oak tree growing just off the path but hanging over an extremely steep hill with the sound of a rushing waterfall in front of us. Unfortunately because of the dark, we were uinable to actually get a look at the waterfall. But the food was amazing! Samosas courtesy of India Spice House and some delightfully crispy apples.

We chilled here for a bit while Kattina read out a beautiful letter from a beautiful friend that was given to us on our first anniversary. Shout out to Gabzilla/Gabbitronix/Gab-EE/Gabasaurus Rex/Gab 0210/Grabby Gabby/G-Dick.

From here we hiked around the waterfall and came out of the forest at the Morningstar Mill where we checked the map and travelled down the most frustrating part of any trail ever! We walked about a km up the road before realizing that we hadn't really seen any blazes for a little bit...we hadn't even seen a path off the road. So we turned around and backtracked (again!) to the mill where we revisited the map and went back up the road on the opposite side. We finally found the blaze...behind a road sign...awesome...

So around 11:30 we finally found our way back onto the trail! We went for another 20 minutes before finding the perfect place to rest for a bit. It was divine provision if you ask me. We had, to our left, a beautiful pine needle bed behind a load of tall grass nearly invisible from the trail.So we went in pitched the Wanderer 2, got into our warm clothes and snuggled up.

Now you should know that we opted out of bringing sleeping bags or thermarests for the sake of space and weight and we thought track suits and a tent would do the trick. Boy were we wrong! We woke up about 3 times each hour to readjust or to put more socks on or just to pray for warmth!

We do know that camping on the trail is considered trespassing and we do know you have to get busted while trespassing to be charged with trespassing and we did know we were taking a risk. But it was awesome.

We had the alarm set for 4am and we were up by 4:30. We started our day with Rice Crispy Squares and some phenominal peanut butter and jelly (RASPBERRY!) wraps. We packed up the tent, checked our gear and we were back on the trail by 6am.

The cool air was amazing. We walked along dew soaked fields and meadows and listened to the birds chirp with the sunrise. There was a cool mist over the earth and which seemed to make the morning that much more beautiful.

6:20 - We arrived at the entrance to Short Hills Provincial Park and were able to watch a doe and her fawn make their way up one of the short hills near the park entrance. We entered the park and found out quickly that it is appropriately named! The hills were pretty short for the most part but we did have some doozies. The park was filled with open meadows, waterfalls, and beautifully matured trees. It was kinda crappy because all of the waterfalls have dried up from the drought. Very cool to walk in though!

7:40 – We arrived at what looked like the summit of Short Hills. We walked up to a picnic table and a parking lot for horses. We sat down at the table which we dubbed 2nd Breakfast Table. Here we enjoyed a fine pint of breakfast beer and a couple samosas and fruit and we relaxed until 8.

8:00 – Back on the trail! We headed down an awesome hill and then back up a less awesome hill. We came into a path along the side of a wide open field and met an awesome Brown Snake. He was about a foot and half long and a little bit aggressive. I think we came up on him pretty quick and scared the little guy. We let him be and made a little note. Soon after this we found a road and exited the designated park area to cross a couple stiles behind some horse farms.

We saw a lot of cool creatures on this hike. It all kind of kicked off with the deer but the brown snake led to cicada, to two Butler Snakes, to a hawk, to many neat little interesting birds, to about 100 little toads, to big dirty vultures!

9:55 – I noticed a steep ridge to the right of the trail and saw some movement. About 30 feet away from us, I noticed a large, black turkey vulture! I kept going while switching to my zoom lens. By the time I turned around he was gone. I noticed a little cave in the rocks with some vulture poo and down feathers and I had a glimmer of hope that I might find a vulture feather. As I maneuvered my way toward the cave I started to get really excited I approached the opening and noticed that there were two vultures right inside!!! I scurried back up the hill to Kattina and got the camera. I came back and they were still there…I put J-May’s Vultures on the music box and snapped a few shots of the birds! I learned that vultures hiss when they mean business and I took that as my cue to move along…So I did…

From here on out, we knew our picker-upper at the end of the trail would be here soon and we had some distance to cover still so we attempted to boot it. We had to hustle through some really interesting parts of the trail that consisted of giant hunks of rock that we got to hop and skip across.

12:44 – We found the road! We were exhausted and sweaty and excited and we found the road! We made our way to the lot where we met our picker-upper, Laurene Wittich. We snapped one final photo and we were on to our next adventure. Yes, a trip to Mec(ca). We ate a pleasant lunch at Timmy’s and drove to Burlington!

When we arrived we had a few things in mind, packs were at the top of the list! After a stroll through the GPS, Water purifier, Bivy Sac, and Hiking tent sections, we met with Dina. Dina is a brilliant MEC employee and an even more brilliant person! She rocks, She was able to give us a ton of information on packs and backs! We learned how to properly pack a pack and strap a pack. We got the lowdown on sleeping bags, and therm-a-rests and she even gave us some rock solid financial advice! Thanks Dina! We’ll see you again bro!

NOW we were headed home. For real.

What did we learn this time? Well, nothing new. But I was reminded of a very important thing when it comes to marriage. It’s better together (Thanks Jack Johnson). We found that we had packed poorly and planned poorly when it came to the distance and the frigid night’s sleep. But while we were hiking around Lake Moodie, I looked at Kattina and told her I was glad she was with me. Two are better than one, especially when going through tough stuff. I’m sure we will encounter more challenging hikes, heavier packs, colder nights and wetter days, but as long as we are together, we can encourage one another and lead each other through the muck and the dark and the blisters and the chills. It’s also great because if one of us falls off a cliff or something, the other can dial 9-1-1. I think that’s in Ecclesiastes somewhere…The Message maybe…

The next hike is going to polish off the Niagara section of trail and it will be glorious.

If anyone is up for joining us, catch me on FaceBook or in real life.

Love Zach + Kattina + Bruce

xoxoxo

P.S. Photos will follow soon!