Bruce Trail 50 Year Anniversary Hike

On April 14, the Hamilton Spectator featured a terrific article written by Jon Wells that described the famous Bruce Trail and the fact that it was now 50 years old. The article also contained a couple examples of trail sections that were particularly interesting and worth visiting. One of these, the section of trail that starts by Great Falls in Waterdown is one that I visited for the first time this past winter and is a trail that I found to be very scenic. So not needing much of an excuse to revisit, I headed out a few weekends back accompanied by Dave, a fellow hiker and photographer extraordinaire.

Parking by Great Falls, the lookout that has been built at the crest provides a great vantage point of the falls and the valley beyond. From here you can also see remnants of the original mills that harnessed the waters of Grindstone Creek over a century ago.

Rather than take the Bruce Trail that leaves from here, we opted to instead hike the north crest of this valley on a virtually non-existent trail but one that provided spectacular views of the Grindstone Cascade below.

Stopping by a very active fox den, we observed countless remains of small mammals that had met their unfortunate demise by becoming dinner to this obviously well fed group of foxes.

We continued along, following the creek and eventually crossing by way of a fallen tree and linking back up to the main trail. On this day, the trail was surrounded by trilliums and spring flowers and the stone walls that line the trail providing stunning detail as to the geological make-up of the escarpment.

Although this is just a small section of the vast 885km long Bruce Trail, it provides great examples of our rich local trail systems and is a trail that I would highly recommend that you pay a visit to.

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