The Mighty Bruce Adventures: Hike # 32 & 33 Birthday Hike

Day 1: 13.8 km

Day 2: 14.5 km

We once again hit the trail on October 17 and 18, 2019, enjoying an incredible two days of glorious fall colours, crisp temperatures (perfect for hiking) and beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, our resident photographer, Allison, was not able to join us so our pictures are certainly not up to the usual quality.

October 17 was cool with a fine mist of precipitation throughout the morning. By the afternoon, the air was dry but the ground still wet. The bounty of fallen leaves covering the trail required extra vigilance, not only to figure out where the trail was, but also not to slip. The wooden boardwalks and bridges were the hardest to negotiate without slipping.

We had our first encounter with a coyote on the trail when we were amazed to see it about ten feet in front of us walking along the trail. Because of the fairly strong wind through the trees and the fact that we were downwind, the coyote hadn’t noticed us. Once we had all seen it, Valerie clapped her hiking poles together and yelled. With a quick glance behind, the coyote left the trail and ran away through the brush. By scaring it off, we were hoping it would not become comfortable around humans and possibly get shot. Suffice it to say we were thrilled with our encounter.

Apart from being slippery, the hike was relatively easy and we all felt rejuvenated and satisfied when we finished.

We enjoyed a lovely evening at a friend’s cottage on the shores of Georgian Bay in Meaford. Plenty of food, wine and cards kept us up into the early hours of the next day!

After a hearty breakfast, plenty of coffee and a quick clean up, we hit the trail for our second day. The weather was glorious – perfect temperature and wonderful sunshine. Day two was more challenging with some steep climbs but there was also plenty of road walking on unpaved farm roads. One industrious dog attempted to herd us into the sheep farm we were passing.

We met an interesting fellow hiker from Cambridge who had started his hike in Tobermory and was hoping to make it to The Blue Mountains before his vacation ended. He was well equipped and provided some great information on what we could expect as we inched ever closer to our end destination. Although he had planned most of his overnight resting places, he did say that one evening he had been forced to pitch a low impact camp on the trail. I couldn’t help but think that there was a better chance of a zombie apocalypse than there was of me staying in a tent by myself at night on the trail! The Blair Witch Project would have been on auto play the whole night in my head.

We ended our hike with a huge feeling of satisfaction and contentment and eagerly wait for next year when we will continue our adventure anew.