Silent Valley with a chatty group Hike #4

I've recently become a member of The Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC) and one of the perks is being able to join in on hikes guided by knowledgeable volunteers. Since I've heard great things about the series of four blue side trails that weave through the Silent Valley Nature Reserve I thought that this was a great opportunity to explore them with other hikers.

I signed my mom and I up for the guided hike on September 5th and we joined 16 other people in a small parking lot at ten o'clock in the morning.

There was a pretty wide age group and many levels of experience. Really, I don't think anyone would have felt out of place!

The plan that our guide Danuta laid out for us was to head out on the Silent Valley Side Trail and follow clockwise through the Wilson Homestead Side Trail joining the main trail and then across the Avalanche Pass Side Trail returning to our vehicle by rejoining the Silent Valley Side Trail. Phew! Awesome!

5 Km of pretty varied path. Let's see what we can find!

A long abandoned homestead is the carrot on the first side trail. The Wilson family made their home in this area in the early 1900's. They dug this well by hand and lined it with rocks from the surrounding fields. The corner of their barn remains a pretty impressive example of dry stacking with a nice sharp corner and a few forgotten pieces of equipment rusting inside.

Farther along the Wilson Side Trail is a sight well worth the trip. A Cessna plane carrying four passengers crashed here is 1970 tragically killing everyone on board.

When I posted photos to social media I had many comments asking where this was. It is a relatively unknown piece of local history and I for one appreciate that it has been left here for hikers to ponder in the peaceful woods.

I'm chatty, so in pretty big group, I struck up conversations with several different people over the morning. The first was a woman who came specifically for the hike from Cambridge, and we had a lovely chat about photography.

Just after joining the main trail (turning to the right) we met a twenty something woman on a solo end to end hike. She'd started from Tobermory and would hopefully reach the southern cairn in Queenston by the end of September. One full month set aside for the adventure! Lucky, crazy, admirable...all of the above!

Then there was a couple who was also searching for the Secrets of Sydenham with me, they had taken major hiking vacations on national trails all over the world. I was lucky to be able to eavesdrop on their later conversation with another hiker who had also done lengthy hiking vacations in really remote places.

They shared the best companies who arranged the hikes and transported their belongings to the next overnight stay keeping their hands and backs free to maneuver the trails.

Since there's no travelling right now due to Covid it was lovely to dream of the trails and countries that their hiking boots had taken them, but also that my knees and back would still carry me along the trail when I was into my 70's as they were!

The main trail here is full of crevices and mossy rocks. It an uneven up and down of two steps here and two there. And, as I mentioned earlier, it has been plenty damp.

Wet rocks, slick mud, and stepping down with nothing to hold on to, that's a recipe for uncertain footing and when the group met at the spot where the main trail forks off towards the Avalanche Pass Side Trail, the group split in two, those feeling sufficiently goaty and those that wanted to stick to more level ground.

The Avalanche pass will wait for another day! We chose to head down the Silent Valley Side Trail which gave us the opportunity to take the Vanishing Wall Side trail and find another clue code.

There are some wonderful surprises in this nature reserve! I found only two of the four codes hidden in this reserve, but that gives me a reason to return!

It was also wonderful to hike with my mom.

A fellow hiker was happy and a little surprised to hear we were hiking together. The truth is that mom has done a lot more hiking in the last ten years than I have!

I'll make it a bucket list goal to have a regular weekly hiking group like mom when I retire. I may even need to dig out this log to retrace my steps with friends in 20 years. Who's interested in joining me!?

5 km of trails covered

September 5th 2020