The Mighty Bruce Adventures: Hike 24 & 25

Hike # 24 - km 35.9 to 55.7 on day 1 (19.8 km) in the Blue Mountains
Hike # 25 - km 55.7 to 66.0 in the Blue Mountains and km 0.0 to 2.3 in Beaver Valley on day 2 (12.6 km) on day 2. Maps 22, 23 and 24.

Finally, after two cancelled hike dates, we were heading out on the main trail again! We had booked an ambitious goal of finishing 40+ km over two days back to back. As it turned out, it was a bit too ambitious and we decided to shorten our Sunday hike to just over 12 km for a total of 32.4 km (not including the side trails that we walked along).

We set out from home around 7 am loaded up with our hiking gear and our overnight bags for a night at Blue Mountain, plus the requisite bottles of wine. It was a girls weekend and that we had been looking forward to for a long time.

We started our hike where we left off many months ago, and were met with the lovely green canopy of late spring. Unfortunately we missed the Trilliums this year, and judging by the many wilted ones we saw, it must have been a spectacular show a couple of weeks ago.

Saturday's hike took us up and down (and up and down) over the valleys and mountains that make up the Blue Mountains. I would call them large hills instead of mountains, but they are still quite a good steep climb on foot and the views overlooking Georgian Bay are spectacular.

Part of the hike (along the Osler Bluffs, I think) there were deep crevasses in the escarpment. Looking down we could still see there was a lot of snow in the bottom! Nature's refrigerator :). Along the way we took a short side trail further up the hill so that we could reach the highest point along the Bruce Trail. Unfortunately, even though we were at the highest point, there were no views from up there. There were some cyclists (I can't even imagine how they cycle on those trails!) who kindly took a group picture.

Due to the difficulty of the terrain on the hike we were a bit off our pace and after 7 hours of hiking we were happy to reach the car and head to our room for showers, wine and dinner. I, for one, slept like the dead that night.

Sunday morning we were up early and back at it. We lost our fourth (Nancy) to other commitments, but she kindly dropped us to our starting point before heading on her way. It was a much easier hike on Sunday starting off down a roadside and along the Scenic Caves Road at the top of Blue Mountain and though the multi-use trails of the resort area. Without so many steep ascents and descents, and a smooth trail, were back on our pace and finished in just over 3.5 hours.

It will be a few months before we are out again. We will converge again in September to continue our journey.

Have a great summer everyone!