After a 2 km road walk, the trail cut to the right into the Kelso Conservation Area along well walked and ridden paths. Many of these paths through the Kelso woods and fields were trails I rode with my mountain bike back a couple of years ago in their weekly race series.
At the 115.3km mark I looked down over the Milton Limestone Quarry. This quarry was started in 1958 and for 40 years, 1 million tones of limestone was quarried per year. In the mid 1990's the conservation authority negotiated with Barrick Gold, to acquire the quarry and rehabilitate it. The quarry area is now being restored for public use.
Large area of May-apples!
The trails continued along the edge of the escarpment steadily rising in elevation with some beautiful lookouts over Milton and the Glen Eden Ski Area. Kelso Lake is a reservoir created by a dam built across Sixteen Mile Creek.
Note the snow that's still at the top of the ski hill!
Speaking of snow, who do I run across on the trail but some kids decked out in snowboarding gear with their snowboards, who had climbed all the way up the escarpment to board the 50 feet of snow at the top. Hard-core snowboarders, that for sure!
The trail continued along the escarpment above the Glen Eden Ski Area and then descended around the 119km mark, to some very old and interesting stone structures. The Christie Lime Kilns are 55 foot stone chimneys built back in the late 1800's to burn limestone to produce lime. When the Credit Valley Railway was built through the area a lime industry started quarrying the limestone from the escarpment and burning it in the kilns at temperatures as high as 1800 degrees F.
The trail continued along the bottom of the hill to the main Ski Chalet. As I had recalled from my time mountain biking at the hill, there was an Osprey nest on top of one of the light standards half way up the hill. Sure enough, the nest was still there and I was able to get a picture, from a distance, of the nest and a flying Osprey. The Osprey is a large raptor with a wingspan of as much as 70". It is one of only a few raptors that have 2 claws facing forward and 2 claws facing backwards that allows it to easily pick up prey like a slippery fish. It usually mates for life and grows to an age 10 years or more.
The Glen Eden Ski Area also has a museum and old farmhouse and barn including a 1830's log house.
The trail headed towards Appleby Line where it followed the road up and under Highway 401. It's at this point the Iroquois section of the Bruce Trail ends and the Toronto section starts. Yeh - another section complete!
The trail headed back in the bush north of Highway 401 and crossed another tributary of Sixteen Mile Creek cascading down from the Hilton Falls Conservation Area. The trail climbed back up onto the escarpment with nice shots of Kelso, Glen Eden and, once again, Toronto.
Finally, after some technical areas around and through the escarpment rocks, the trail ended at the Halton Country Inn Golf Course at the 2.5km mark of the Toronto section.
Another wonderful day of hiking!
Completed: 204.2km
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