A bit of background

This past weekend was the start of our Bruce Trail End to End adventure. If you’ve not heard of it, the Bruce Trail is a hiking trail that follows the Niagara Escarpment from Queenston Heights to Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada, coming in at around 890km in length.

There are several ways to tackle the trail, and if you’re doing the trail End to End, that is from Queenston to Tobermory or vice versa, then it will take on average 30+ days to hike. The record is I believe 12 days, which is insane, and of course if you hike under 20km a day, it’ll take longer. Some people hike straight through in one shot, needing of course at least a month off from work or school in order to do so, some do it in weekend chunks, or some tackle it in individual day hikes. Depending on how often you do the next section, it can take years to finish.

The trail is divided into nine sections or ‘clubs’, who are responsible for the maintenance of the trail through their section. Each club offers end to end badges for hiking from one end of the section to the other, in addition to the Bruce Trail End to End badge for hiking the trail all the way through.

Our Trail Plan

Even though I grew up in Ontario I only heard about the Bruce Trail about 8 years ago. My mom and I hiked the Camino de Santiago 800km across the north of Spain in 2015 and had heard from other Ontarians along The Way that they had practiced for the Camino along the Bruce Trail. This peaked my interest and my mom and I decided to hike the Bruce Trail at some point. We’ll it’s been 8 years and my mom’s turning 70 this year so I figured we’d better start.

Back in 2015, I had wanted to do the Bruce Trail straight through like we did the Camino (33 days hiking straight, no rest days!!), but not only would I not be able to get the time off to do so, I don’t think I physically and mentally could at this point. In my experience hiking a bit of the BT, the terrain is a bit more challenging, it’s about 100km longer and the logistics are a nightmare (more on that later)!

So, I decided we should tackle it in weekend chunks, 2-3 days at a time on the trail, a few weekends per summer, meaning it’ll take us a few years to finish. I bought the official guidebook to see how best to break it into parts. Now, I am no camper, I like to have a proper washroom at the end of a long day of hiking, however, given that this is Ontario and after leaving Hamilton, rural and northern Ontario, logistics require more research and planning. Some people on the Camino will just ‘wing it’, walk until they’re tired and then find a place to stay the night. For the most part, especially since the revival in popularity of the medieval pilgrimage route in the 1990s, this is completely feasible. The only problem is everything might be full up if it’s the high season and you’ll need to walk to the next town to find something. But along the Camino are hotels and ‘albergue’ (pilgrim hostels) as well as restaurants and cafes for your meals. The towns may be small but they have what you’ll need for the day or night. And if you’re too tired, they have taxis and buses as well as luggage/backpack ferrying services, so you can send your luggage on to the next town if you can’t carry it anymore. Rural Ontario not so much.

So to get back to not being a camper, which is how most people I believe spend nights on the trail while hiking it for a few or many days at a time, I broke it into chunks where we could find non-camping accommodation. To be honest, it’s not like the camping accommodation is plentiful either, and there are many parts of the trail where it is prohibited, so the BT requires a lot more advance research and planning than the Camino in my experience. And so, onto our hiking adventure…

Part 1 – Southern Terminus Cairn to Mountainview Conservation Area – 73.5/890km

As this was the start to our hiking the BT, I figured we should get a good chunk of it under our belts and decided to make it a 3 day weekend hike.

Friday, June 9, 2023 – 0.0km-26.8km Niagara section

We packed our hiking backpacks with clothing, gear and snacks for the three days we’d be on the trail. Starting off from Toronto at 6am, we were lucky enough to be driven to our starting point by my partner. We arrived at Queenston Heights Park around 7:15am, took the required pictures with the Southern terminus cairn and started walking around 7:30am.

It was a bit overcast and in the low 20s (Celsius) and started raining a bit at one point, which was actually quite refreshing. The sun came out a bit in the afternoon, but for the most part the weather was pleasant.

The trail starts through the Queenston Heights Park and links up with the Laura Secord Heritage Trail. You then walk down a somewhat busy road to another forested area, walking parallel to the train tracks.

You’ll pass over the QEW highway on a pedestrian bridge and then come to the haunted ‘Screaming Tunnel’ which takes you under the above mentioned railway tracks. The early 1900s limestone drainage tunnel is said to be haunted by the screams of a girl burnt to death in the tunnel, with differing levels of gristliness in versions of the story as to how she became alight.

After walking along a quiet road of farms and vineyards, you’ll come to Woodend Conservation Area, with one picnic table. I’d suggest stopping to rest and/or eat lunch here as I found a dearth of benches along the trail and the increasing threat of ticks makes me wary of sitting in the grass/woods.

You’ll see some of the cliff face of the escarpment on the western end of the trail through this area, but for the most part there aren’t many good views. I’ve heard the BT called a green tunnel and indeed it is. You’re walking mostly through a mix of deciduous and coniferous forests in a karst landscape, so expect lots of rocks and roots along the trail. The karst topography is due to the escarpment you’re walking along, which is mainly limestone, a soluble carbonate rock in which cracks, crevices, caves and potholes are easily formed. Although the trail goes along the top of an escarpment or cliff for most of the way, there are trees and shrubs blocking the view. There are several lookout areas along the trail but for the most part you’re looking at trees. If ‘forest bathing’ isn’t your thing, then this trail might not be for you.

You then follow the trail from Woodend through the Royal Niagara Golf Club to the Third Welland Canal (in operation from 1881-1932). You’ll follow the trail between the golf course and the canal before coming to a busy road along which you’ll cross the currently-active 4th Welland Canal, which is a shipping canal that links Lake Ontario with Lake Erie. From here you’ll follow the 4th canal to a wooded area and then pop out into a residential area before coming to a major road with fast food chains and a mall along it. Good place to stop for food or washrooms.

You’ll then turn into another residential area, steadily climbing until you get to a forested area belonging to Brock University. This is where we ended our first day of hiking at 26.8km.

There are a few hotels in the area, but the closest and cheapest (still not cheap) was the 4 Points hotel just south of the Brock University campus, which also has a Tim’s, McDonalds and Subway close by. We ended our hike around 3:30pm and got to our hotel around 4pm. By this point I was exhausted and very sore. I had developed planter fasciitis about 6 months prior to our BT adventure and my foot was so sore by the end of the day. I was fine for the first 3 hours before it started bothering me, which just got progressively worse. I also discovered the elastic ankle band of my pants had given me an awful heat rash all around my ankles. So I had a shower and put on my creams and ointments I had brought and passed out around 8:30pm. My mom had gone out to get us subs and a well-deserved iced coffee for myself and tea for herself as I couldn’t walk anymore due to the throbbing in my ankles and foot. And we still had two more days of hiking. I was trying to remember if I had suffered this much on the Camino or not… probably.

Saturday, June 10, 2023 – 26.8km-52.7km Niagara section

We got up around 6:30am and got our gear together. Still very sore but it’s amazing how much the body will repair itself with 10 solid hours of sleep. We walked to the nearby Tim’s for breakfast and then back to our starting point of 26.8km, starting our day’s hike around 8am.

You continue through Brock University’s woods, skirting the campus. You’ll then come to a fence with Ontario Power signs, walking a beside the fence before turning back into the woods, which is still right beside the Brock campus, meaning you’ve just done a big circle around the campus. Back into the woods, you’ll walk beside Lake Moodie, cross a bridge over it and then walk along the lake on the other side through DeCew House Heritage Park passing the First Nations Peace Monument.

Coming out of the woods you’ll follow a path that runs between the lake and Ontario Power property until you come to the dam, at which point you drop back into the woods at the back of the Morningstar Mill property where DeCew Falls are located. At this point there’s a hairpin turn in the trail with signs pointing one way to Queenston and the other way to Tobermory. If you’ve not been to DeCew Falls or Morningstar Mill before (and don’t have a long walk ahead) I’d recommend taking the side trail to the mill and falls. We’d been there before a few times so felt ok skipping it on this hike, and headed down the ridge on the opposite side of the falls.

After descending the ridge you’ll come to a bit of a clearing with a little bridge over a creek. We decided to stop here for a rest and snack as again we hadn’t encountered any benches along the trail and the base of the bridge offered a good seat. Crossing the bridge, you’ll go a little ways before coming to a road, on the other side of which you enter Short Hills Provincial Park.

You end up walking along four different trails within the park, walking beside a river along the Very Berry trail, through the forest on the Black Walnut trail before popping out onto a gravel road. Follow the road until the outhouse, really gross but better than the mosquito and tick filled bush. At the outhouse the road is barred to cars, continue along the road until you get to the Terrace Creek trail. The creek as well as the Terrace Creek Falls were completely dry! Most of the creeks we passed were also dry or just had stagnant pools of water in parts of them. The ground was also dry and cracked. No wonder wildfire season is unprecedentedly bad this year!

Once on the Swayze Falls trail, you’ll go through some meadows and woods before coming to the falls… which also had no water flowing. There’s a little boardwalk with a bench(!) at the lookout point, where we stopped for lunch around 12:50pm. At this point I was very tired and hot, we were running out of water because it was sunny, hot and humid out, and my foot had been hurting since 10am. However, we still had to walk to Louth Conservation Area before our day was done.

Leaving the falls, you’ll go through more woods, then pop out at a quiet residential road. My mom actually asked someone she saw in the driveway of one of the houses if we could refill one of our bottles as we were completely out of water and still had a couple more hours of walking.

A little way along the road you’ll pop back into the woods following a narrow path through forest skirting peoples’ farms and fields. This part seemed interminably long to me, but you’ll eventually get to Rockway Conservation Area. Again, Rockway Falls and most of the streams were dry. Rockway CA is actually quite lovely and we’d been there before but I was really beginning to suffer at this point as my foot and the rashes on my ankles were being jarred with every step. In hindsight, we probably should have called it a day once we got out of Rockway, but it was only a few more kilometres to our planned destination for that day so we pushed on to our goal.

The part between Rockway CA and Louth Conservation Area was the worst for me. It’s a section of the trail you should probably start your hike with rather than end it as it’s rocky with lots of descents and ascents, and, although in and of itself not that challenging, when you’re in extreme pain and fatigued, a pleasant hike it does not make. Tears were involved, thoughts of just giving up and sleeping on the trail were had. In short, neither myself nor my mom thought I’d make it. But we eventually reached Louth CA and the end of our day’s hike at kilometre 52.7 around 4:20pm.

I had reserved an Uber ahead of time, as Jordan doesn’t have a lot of amenities or services, lots of beautiful vineyards though. Additionally, many of the inns or boutique hotels in the area, in addition to being hella expensive, generally require a minimum stay of 2 nights, which obviously we couldn’t do. I was able to find a nice B&B in Jordan Station that allowed us a one night stay, however it was a 10-15 minute drive away and was not within walking distance of anywhere for dinner, so we ordered in UberEats… not ideal but again, the logistics for hiking this trail aren’t great.

Sunday, June 11, 2023 – 52.7km-73.5km Niagara section

I had booked an Uber to pick us up from the B&B and take us to kilometre 52.7 by Louth Conservation Area. We started that day’s leg at 8am. It was sunny, hot and a bit humid but better than the day before.

You walk along the road beside vineyards for a bit before turning into the forest which then connects with Ball’s Falls Conservation Area. You’ll walk along a rocky path next to Twenty Mile Creek before coming to some wooden stairs. You’ll then go down some stairs on the other side of the ridge and find yourself in the historic village of Glen Elgin in Ball’s Falls. You might want to take a break here to look at the historic buildings and see Ball’s Falls. There are also benches here. The water level of the falls was pitiful. It started raining a bit which was refreshing, but we’ll need a lot more to fill up all the dry streams and waterfalls we went past.

You’ll loop around Ball’s Falls, however there aren’t any good views from the other side due to the foliage, unless you go in the winter. You’ll continue along in the forest, skirting vineyards before coming to a little residential road. This leads to a major road which is very busy, so take care in crossing it. You’ll climb up a slope on the other side and walk along the edge of farms and vineyards into forest again. This continues for awhile before connecting to Cave Springs Conservation Area.

Cave Springs has some very karsty trails, and also has a lookout. Crossing the road will bring you out of Cave Springs into more forest which is also very karsty. You’ll pop out at Kinsmen Park, which has benches! Following the trail from here will take you to a dead end residential road, where we saw two friendly cats before going into the woods at the end of the road. The trail here was nice and wide and the walk is quite lovely. Skirting vineyards again will bring you to another little forest before popping out into the parking lot of Locust Lane Winery. Following Locust Lane, you’ll pass vineyards before turning onto Mountainview Road, on the left of which is the entrance to Mountainview Conservation Area and kilometre 73.5, which was the end of our hike for the day and for this segment!

I was tired and sore but nothing compared to yesterday. We finished around 2:50pm and got picked up by my partner around 3:20pm. After which I got an iced coffee and a burger from MsDonalds. I also discovered a number of mosquito bites despite our constant spraying of bug spray. Do not forget the bug spray, you will be eaten alive! And so, until our next leg!