Hiking (part of) the Bruce Trail
Hello,
I hope I am finding you well and the trails have been kind. September 4 was labour day and we wanted to get out for a nice hike before the back to school (SK for our boy) and new daycare (for our daughter) day.
This decision was made pretty late in the day as Brock wasn't home until a bit past noon and Zoé needed to get her ever shorter nap in. We wanted to head over to the Smokey Hollow Waterfall, but there is only a tiny parking lot (which is a pain to get in and out of) and it was full with a ton of people trying to get in. So we kept driving on Mountain Brow Road and arrived at a Bruce Trail access point off of King Road. We parked on the side of the road, grabbed our water and off we went, heading West but not sure how far we would go.
Now Ron and I have downloaded a free app (in-app purchases) called ViewRanger. It is a GPS guide and here is what they say on their site: ViewRanger is your digital guide to the outdoors, with hundreds of thousands of downloadable route guides, free worldwide maps, and powerful GPS navigation features. Our mobile app runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Kindle Fire, and Android smartphones, tablets, and watches. Now I haven't really used it but it has been a couple times that Ron has. We had some issues getting it going but once we did, it was great to make sure we were on track, mostly when we decided to create our own loop by following a non-Bruce Trail trail in order to not have to do the exact same trail back to our car.
The app also lets you share your hike with others and keep track of the ones you've done. Here's a screenshot of the one we did on Monday.
It also shows you length, start and end time, total ascent and descent, duration, avg. speed, max. speed, max. and min. elevation and real length.
So, Zoé was on Ron's back for what I would say was 2/3 of the hike. She ended up doing really well over some really rocky parts and would just get up and dust herself off if she did fall. Our entire hike was 3.06 km and took us about an hour and 40 minutes to complete. The non-Bruce trail part which was close to the road was actually quite annoying and not very well maintained. The poor 4 year old kept getting branches in the face and getting tangled in long grass and such. He still enjoyed himself. We would get thorny branches caught in our arms and clothes. Not so fun. When we first went on this part of trail, there was a ton of garbage. I happened to have a plastic bag on me so I picked up as much of it as possible, even though it wasn't mine. We can all do our parts to keep trails clear, clean and safe for everyone to use.
We had a blast. We were dirty and tired when we got back to the car, but we felt like we had accomplished a great hike. If we were to go and do the same section again, we would just turn around to get back to our car and not do the side trail. That part was just not overly pleasant. I think we would prefer to discover a different section of the Bruce Trail anyway on our next Bruce Trail hike. There's so much of it to explore!
I hope that you will come and see where we roam next. Feel free to leave questions and comments. Also, let us know what else you would like to see from us. More photos? More information regarding trails? I may not be an expert, but I don't mind doing a bit of research and sharing my findings with all of you.
Thanks for dropping by. Onto the next adventure!
Rachel
I hope I am finding you well and the trails have been kind. September 4 was labour day and we wanted to get out for a nice hike before the back to school (SK for our boy) and new daycare (for our daughter) day.
This decision was made pretty late in the day as Brock wasn't home until a bit past noon and Zoé needed to get her ever shorter nap in. We wanted to head over to the Smokey Hollow Waterfall, but there is only a tiny parking lot (which is a pain to get in and out of) and it was full with a ton of people trying to get in. So we kept driving on Mountain Brow Road and arrived at a Bruce Trail access point off of King Road. We parked on the side of the road, grabbed our water and off we went, heading West but not sure how far we would go.
Now Ron and I have downloaded a free app (in-app purchases) called ViewRanger. It is a GPS guide and here is what they say on their site: ViewRanger is your digital guide to the outdoors, with hundreds of thousands of downloadable route guides, free worldwide maps, and powerful GPS navigation features. Our mobile app runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Kindle Fire, and Android smartphones, tablets, and watches. Now I haven't really used it but it has been a couple times that Ron has. We had some issues getting it going but once we did, it was great to make sure we were on track, mostly when we decided to create our own loop by following a non-Bruce Trail trail in order to not have to do the exact same trail back to our car. 
It also shows you length, start and end time, total ascent and descent, duration, avg. speed, max. speed, max. and min. elevation and real length.
So, Zoé was on Ron's back for what I would say was 2/3 of the hike. She ended up doing really well over some really rocky parts and would just get up and dust herself off if she did fall. Our entire hike was 3.06 km and took us about an hour and 40 minutes to complete. The non-Bruce trail part which was close to the road was actually quite annoying and not very well maintained. The poor 4 year old kept getting branches in the face and getting tangled in long grass and such. He still enjoyed himself. We would get thorny branches caught in our arms and clothes. Not so fun. When we first went on this part of trail, there was a ton of garbage. I happened to have a plastic bag on me so I picked up as much of it as possible, even though it wasn't mine. We can all do our parts to keep trails clear, clean and safe for everyone to use.
We had a blast. We were dirty and tired when we got back to the car, but we felt like we had accomplished a great hike. If we were to go and do the same section again, we would just turn around to get back to our car and not do the side trail. That part was just not overly pleasant. I think we would prefer to discover a different section of the Bruce Trail anyway on our next Bruce Trail hike. There's so much of it to explore!
I hope that you will come and see where we roam next. Feel free to leave questions and comments. Also, let us know what else you would like to see from us. More photos? More information regarding trails? I may not be an expert, but I don't mind doing a bit of research and sharing my findings with all of you.
Thanks for dropping by. Onto the next adventure!
Rachel
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