Grinding the Grindstone - Hike 11

Hike 11 started at the 62.6km mark of the Iroquois Section of the Bruce Trail. I parked at the edge of Valley Road at the trail entrance.

The trail climbs through the Royal Botanical Gardens property up and along the escarpment until it descends to Old Guelph Road at Highway 6.

Check the interesting cloud formation over Hamilton!

A concrete tunnel takes you under Highway 6. As the trail continues on the east side of the highway there are ruins of an old homestead that are very interesting!

The trail continues along the escarpment through Clappison Woods.

The trail then descends and meets a railway track. The railway was originally built by the Southern Ontario Pacific Railway in 1910 connecting Hamilton to Guelph via Waterdown. It took 2 years to build at a cost of $1 million. It stopped carrying passengers in 1950 and is still used today for freight.

The trail continues to descend down the escarpment, crossing Snake Road at the 67.6km mark.

It continues to descend steeply down and around a large swamp and eventually meets up with Grindstone Creek. A large wooden bridge allows the trail to cross a rushing Grindstone Creek.

After crossing the creek, the trail turns north and follows Grindstone Creek upstream, climbing up the creek valley. The following are some nice shots of Grindstone Creek.

Further up the creek valley, the valley becomes steep sided and the trail climbs steeply up beside the creek. There are huge boulders and rushing rapids at this point.

The following pictures are near the top of the creek valley as it nears the Great Falls.

Great Falls, or sometimes called Grindstone Falls or Smokey Hollow Falls, is 10 meters high. The first mill was built at the lip of the falls in 1805, followed over the years by many other mills. There were so many mills at one point, with so much smoke, the area was named Smokey Hollows. The mills continued to operate for nearly 100 years.

In total, Grindstone Creek drops about 135m in elevation down the escarpment through a valley about 4km long.

The trail continues through Waterdown crossing Mill Street. On the east side of Mill Street there is an area where there are Bitternut Hickory trees. Check the amount of nuts in the tree!

I finished up at the 71.8km mark of the trail. My wife met me and drove me back to my car.

Another wonderful day of hiking!

Completed: 151.8km

Spencer's Gorge - Hike 10

Another beautiful day for hiking as I headed out for Hike 10 on the Bruce Trail.

I parked my car at the small parking lot at the 51.8km mark on the trail and headed out north beside a horse farm and through woods and orchards.

At about the 53km mark the trail turns east and parallels a main railway track traversing down the escarpment towards Hamilton - I would pass over and under this railway track a few times during my hike this day.

Continuing east I passed the Dundas Golf and Country Club after which the trail passes the railway tracks again and heads down into Dundas through neighbourhoods including some very old parts of the town.

From Dundas you could look up at the escarpment including the Dundas Lookout. Here is a picture of the outlook, with someone sitting on the edge a few hundred feet up.

The trail leaves Dundas and starts up the escarpment via Sydenham Street and at the 57.6km mark I veered west and headed off on the Webster's Falls Side Trail. The side trail zig zags steeply up to the top of the escarpment, passing under the railway tracks again, along paths that were clearly very old railway lines.

 

The trail continues west to another small side trail to the Dundas Lookout - what a view! Note the shot with the very small train on the tracks below!

 

From the lookout the trail follows the Spencer Gorge around to Tews Falls. At 41 meters, Tews Falls is the highest water fall in the Hamilton area and is only about 20 feet shorter than Niagara Falls - very spectacular from the viewing platform above the falls.

The trail continues on towards Webster's Falls passing a couple of interesting sites. First was a beautiful modern home, floor to ceiling windows with a view looking back out the Spencer Gorge - what a view from your living room!

The trail also passes the grave stones of the Webster family members and others.

Dr. James Hamilton settled the area in 1818 and Joseph Webster purchased it in 1820. Various flour and grist mills were built at the falls but burned in 1898. One of the first hydro electric generators in the province was built below Webster's Falls. The falls and area was bequest to the Town of Dundas in 1933. Webster's Falls is 22 meters high with a large water volume and is one of the most photographed falls in the area.

From here I back-tracked along the whole Webster's Falls Side Trail back to the Bruce Trail just north of Dundas and then continued east along the escarpment. The trail meets another escarpment water fall, Borer's Falls which is 15 meters high.

I finished up at the 62.6km mark on the trail and walked down Valley Road and York Road to the first bus stop and picked up a bus back out through Dundas to where I parked my car. Total hike for the day, with all the side trails and walks to get buses added up to 24km - a long day!

Completed: 142.6km