The ski hill in the first 5km was deadly - basically straight up. Thought it'd be fun for Laura and I to come back in winter and ski it but alas turns out it's a private ski hill and this is not an option :(. lol I never even knew such things existed. All the rest of the hike was lovely and comparatively easy. Perfect weather.
Today's Stats:
Distance: 22.6 km
Elevation Gain: 873 m
Duration: 4h 34 min
Avg Pace: 12:10
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| Fun random find |
Eugenia Falls and Hoggs Falls today - slight "touristing" detours for photos ;). - hiked a fair bit of today with Karen (from last wknd). Constant up and down today. Gorgeous and interesting but challenging. No really rocky sections but two random arches (see photo) that I found interesting.
Today's Stats:
Distance: 22.3 km
Elevation Gain: 914m
Weather: 20 deg and overcast
Duration: 4h 241 min
Avg Pace: 12:37
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| Hogg's Falls was the smaller of the two, but I liked it better |
Today's Stats:
Distance: 25.9 km
Elevation Gain: 1381m
Weather: 20 deg and overcast
Duration: 5h 29 min
Avg Pace: 12:45
Finished 16th
Thoughts from after:
Today was everything yesterday wasn't. I was significantly slower but not actually as slow as I'd expected. Similar elevation today but it felt much easier as they were long slow climbs rather than straight up. The views were amazing, in multiple locations throughout. And the terrain was a serious adventure - at times almost rock climbing (both up and down). And even a nice river walk for a short while. I walked a good part of the first half with another woman who I quite enjoyed chatting with, and then the second half almost entirely by myself which was lovely. And far enough away from others that nature sounds had started back up. Really nice.
During:
6 - Stomach is not happy w me this am and v little sleep - could make today interesting
7:35 - Crazy fog lines this am - perfectly sunny, then a wall of fog and very little visibility
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| Loved the sunbeams through the trees |
9:05 - This is 100 times better than yesterday. Amazing terrain and amazing views. I’m definitely slower, but not as much as I thought and the chatty hiker with the shrill voice is far ahead and can't be heard ;)
9:32 - I am apparently the "Solo Hiker With the Bouncy Pony Tail" I’ll take that 😂 The pony tail will stop bouncing by the end of the day, but that amused me for the moment.
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| Rocks early in |
1215 No need for scenic caves whatsoever after today’s adventure. So many rocks - sometimes going up, sometimes going down. Often requiring 2 hands to navigate. Lots of crevices. So much fun.
So earlier on this year, I noticed that when I’m going up a steep hill, especially if I’m tired, I put my hands on my hips. I have no idea why I do this. It makes no sense at all, but today I noticed two other women doing the exact same thing so I’m really curious why that’s a natural thing to do when trying to get up a sleep hill.
1230 on the easier parts I’m trying to convince myself to move a little faster so I actually finish today but I really am enjoying the peace and quiet. I haven’t seen anybody for quite some time and it is just so stunningly gorgeous and a lovely day.
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| One of the view points on the easy trail |
So after the BV hike this am, I went and had a shower and a nap, but after that was feeling okay and considering what's next. I was disappointed during the Blue Mountain hike that we didn't go through the Scenic Caves section (it was closed due to the ice storm damage) and considered going over. But... do I *really* want to go hiking again? Esp given that I still have tomorrow?
I checked Google - $35 to get in?!?! Yeah, no. Less interested. Also, hiking boots or proper running shoes required. My options were sandles or putting my hiking boots back on. You can imagine how much I wanted to put my hiking boots back on ;-P
So I decided lunch first - stopped at the Ravenna Market; tiny little blink-and-you-miss-it town, but their lunch counter had a line out the door. So was texting C while waiting in that line for my worth-the-wait sandwich and he recommended that I go. AND, the Market was on the same street, AND the weather forecast had changed so the rain would be later. So that combination decided me and I sucked up the need for the hiking boots and went over.
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| One of many types of signs to ensure everyone stayed safe and refrained from getting lost |
Worth it. 100%. At least once. Future me knows that there are other places in nearby areas that are just as good and can be explored for free (another day!) but at the time, I hadn't seen anything yet. Whoever designed the wayfinding and signage for this place both knows what they're doing for signage AND knows just how stupid the public can be. I was really impressed a number of times :)
The park has main trails and back trails. The main trails are mostly wide and flat (easy enough to push a stroller for instance) although some significant hills. All the hills have a number of benches along the way. Any potentially intimidating areas (tight spaces, heights, etc) had clearly signed alternatives for people who didn't want to participate to meet others at the end.
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| Suspension Bridge |
One example of that is the suspension bridge. It was more wobbly than you'd think, but not bad compared to some I've been on. Had a great example of "the two types of people" walking by one couple where the woman was fascinated with the view and the man was fascinated with the type of steel used in the cables and commenting on how strong they were.
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| You could walk all the way through here |
My favourite part was actually on the "Ridge Trail" which was super easy to hike, but this one section was a crevice walk-through. Not very long, but very cool, and there wasn't a single other person anywhere around.
The parking lot was packed when I got there, but there was only one area that was actually crowded. Everywhere else I basically had the place to myself. I did do a little bit of the back trails (mostly to get to a view point) and they felt more like the BT - a noticeable difference in difficulty. In the end, I headed back more because I needed water than anything else. I came into this already dehydrated and expecting a no-skills-required stroll and definitely inhaled a number of bottles of water.
Today's Stats:
Distance: 25.26 km
Elevation Gain: 1125m
Weather: 25 deg and overcast
Duration: 4h 24 min
Avg Pace: 10:29
Finished 7th
Thoughts from after:
Today was interesting in that I was dying after the first 5k with some v steep hills and really worried about my fitness level and my ability to complete the rest, but then that was it. No more particularly steep hills, no particularly interesting or impressive views, no interesting or challenging footing. It was just a long, fairly boring, walk. Also, instead of check points every 10k, they just did one in the middle, which - not the end of the world - but slightly disappointing and mentally challenging when you're expecting a break at 10 and it doesn't come till well after.
During:
5:30am - I’m awake. I don’t need to be awake for another 90 mins. This is okay now but will likely make the end of the hike a challenge.
7:40 am - the parking ladies are taking their jobs very seriously and yet not great at it 😂. So much so that getting out is likely to be a challenge. That’s a future me problem ;)
7:45 checked in and good to go. I’m number 26 for the day. Bus is not here yet…. This one maxed at 50 people and I got in from the wait list so pretty safe bet it’ll be about a 50 person start
8:00 “Bus departs at 8am sharp”. It’s 8am, bus has yet to arrive much less depart ;)
9:07 What goes down must come up. That might not be what you remember from physics class, but it's definitely the rule for hiking. You go down a nice nice lovely trail, across a tiny bridge over a stream of some sort, and then straight up. And up. And up. And... you guessed it... up.
10:26 So I know logically the whole point of this trail is that it follows in Niagara Escarpment, but somehow the first thing I think when I get to the giant rock crevices is "this reminds me of Niagara" ;). Lol you'd think it'd clue in by now. (Edited after - little did I know, this would be about it for rocks on this hike)
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| Nice place for a break |
11:53 Love this bench and view. Tempted to stop and enjoy it for long enough to let the extremely loud person behind me catch up and pass. The other two people with her are no issue, but wow - what a shrill voice. I've been lucky not to have experienced that for very long on other previous hikes.
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| A pretty place to sit for a bit |
So I drove up to Thornbury for more hiking adventures. Not feeling particularly ready for this one so we’ll see how it goes. Roughly 120km over two weekends of medium to hard difficulty hiking. The area is stunning but we’ll see how it goes ;)
I was amused to drive by “Far View” Farm and looked out and all I could think was “yup, you have a really far view, and the cow grazing in the front yard suggests it is, in fact, a farm” - creativity may not be their strong suit, but they nailed accuracy and a stunning view to go along w it.
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| Not Wrong |
Also - Thornbury is really far away. 😂 idk how younger me used to come up here so often, and hauling horses! My tolerance for commuting - even pretty commutes - has definitely lessened. Although to be fair, it’d be an hour less from where I used to live, but even still. I found two ice cream places before I found somewhere for dinner ;). Most of the city itself was closed - being after 5:00 on a Friday...
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| Ice Cream for dinner for the win! |
The place I’m staying is…. Interesting. 🤔. The guy who runs it, Richard, is definitely a character who it seems has had a fairly interesting life. “Tries hard” I think is the right description for both the place and the proprietor. But has both rooms and campsites available, and seemed to have a wide range of activities that I didn’t see anything about on the website (definitely something to do with kayaking tours; they’ll also shuttle hikers to and from the Bruce Trail; probably more options I haven’t seen yet.
Cell service is intermittent up here so may or may not be updates tomorrow.
Writing this as I go - we'll see how it turns out. I'm trying to draw Tucker. Not shockingly, there are no online tutorials on how to do this :). I figured I'd document the process for posterity 😂 May the odds be ever in my favour.
So - Day one started with finding a photo - one that was clear enough I could see details; I particularly wanted one that showed his eyes, and ideally with perked ears, which was harder to find than expected.
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| This was my selection |
From there I had to make my sketch - that... took a while ;). Esp as I wanted it bigger than the photo actually is. But I was happy enough w what I ended up with. This is improvement over the last time I tried to sketch a dragon from an image. That did not go so well ;). Alas, at the time I had no intention of documenting this adventure, so there are no pics of the sketch on its own, although of course you can see parts of it in the pics below.
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| Day 2 |
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| Day 3 - a week later |
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| Day 4 - Starting to think I should make a flip book ;) |
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| Day 5 |
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| Day 6 |
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| Day 7 |
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| Day 8 - Calling it done :) |
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| The truly lazy river :) |
No real change room (although C mentioned finding one later on the other side of the park). Not surprising since this was a ski resort first. However - the washroom was huge w a ton of stalls that were an acceptable size to change in. Only thing that caught me out - when I first went in, all the doors were closed and another woman was waiting so I also waited in line. Fairly normal occurrence in women’s washrooms. Until 2 kids came in who had clearly been here before and just walked down lightly pushing on each door till one opened 🤦♀️. Yup - doors are spring loaded so default is closed rather than open. The other woman and I quickly found spaces and when moments later a camp load arrived the instruction from the counsellor was “check the doors till you find an open one and then get changed” - so yeah - partially you need to know the system.
All sorted and good to go, we decided we’d do the slides in order from one side to the other. Except the two furthest weren’t open yet so slight deviation. Most of the slides were two-person tube rides, with one solo tube, one set of tube-less, and one that actually involved a raft 😂
This park is hands down the best I’ve ever been to. And the number of adults there without children attached seems to suggest I’m not the only one who feels that way. I’ll give you some of the more unique highlights:
A individual-tube ride where you drop down into whirlpool after whirlpool. There’s an intermediate and an expert version of this one (albeit we only did the expert one, but we did it more than once cause we enjoyed it so much) - the trick is to grab a rope attached to the side of the whirlpool- otherwise you can be stuck in the middle for ages ;)
There was a 2-person tube ride (opened an hour later than the rest of the park) that was through a pitch-black tunnel that basically was just a series of drops. They were very insistent that the heaviest person being in front. I'm going w that was a safety issue because if the lighter person had been in front physics suggests the heavier person may well have landed on TOP of the smaller person. Esp if difference was significant (think large father and small child). For us though what it meant was extra speed, and I got some air time right before each drop 😂. This was by far the fastest ride and we did it multiple times.
There was the Colorado River. Okay so this is on the other side of the park from most stuff (there are two rides all on their own). We started heading up the long walk up the mountain - questioning if we were doing something wrong since we were the *only* ones not carrying a yellow two-person tube. And it was a long hike up so it’d be annoying if so. But we got to a place where the trail split, so we went away from the yellow tube ride, and eventually there were other people behind us, making me think we were maybe going to a real ride. Then we started to hear the rapids - like white water rapids. Half way up a mountain?!?! A little disconcerting but okay. And then we see the ride hut and realize there are a ton of other people there in line, nobody carrying anything, so clearly an okay place to be. That line took us an hour to get through. To put in perspective, we didn’t wait longer than a couple minutes for literally any other ride.
So next to the line was a chair lift - that every few mins was hauling a raft up. Like an actual raft - not a floaty tube. There was a warning - in both languages - about it being a high intensity ride, must be in good physical condition, no pregnant women or people w heart conditions, etc. I completely ignored this exactly as I would at any amusement park - because I have the luxury to do so being generally healthy and fit. This one?!?! This one I should’ve respected.
We waited and waited - you can’t see much from the line and we weren’t hearing the screams you hear from some of the rides (that tunnel drop ride I never made it through without a screech). Yeah - you know when there’s a small child and they fall and they scream you can pretty much assume they’re fine? But if they fall and are silent, you know there’s a real issue? This ride was the grown up version.
So the staff person was talking quite a bit to everyone before sending them off. You sit one at either end of the raft, both facing in, with legs stretched out diagonally (I nominated Chris to go backwards 😂). There was a shift change right before we went though and the staff person didn’t say a word to us. No instruction, no heads up as to what was coming, nothing. And from what you can see at this point it looks like all the other rides - a bit of a start to get some speed and then follow the route to the bottom.
The idea behind this one is that it would mimic white water rafting. I have been white water rafting, several times; I loved it. I did not believe for a moment this would mimic that with any degree of success or realism given the whole water-slide concept but still thought it’d be a fun ride.
Dear Reader, let me tell you how much I misinterpreted. Not only did it 💯 capture the realistic parts of white water rafting, it significantly increased the intensity. The helmets they give you are neither decorative nor merely to keep the lawyers happy, there is a very real chance your head will be banged off concrete at some point on this ride. I somehow ended up w road rash on my shoulder blade - still not sure how that happened 😂 Multiple times I would’ve been launched from the raft if not for my death grip on the handles. Like significant air time and tossed around as though I were in a blender. More than once I ended up lying flat out, w a good portion of me on Chris’ side of the raft. Since I was wearing contacts, I couldn’t see for most of it, and more than once caught a wave in my face. There were well timed moments when it settled just long enough to reposition myself before kicking in again. When I say it was intense, I’m not exaggerating. I’m glad I did it. It was worth the wait. I’m not sure I ever need to do it again ;).
Seriously though - actual white water rafting you’re paddling not holding on - if I hadn’t been holding on w everything I had, I would’ve been out of the raft and floating down the river after the first set of rapids here.
So yeah, that one was wild. Although I have to admit, Chris seemed to be having a blast lol. As a recovery measure we visited the lazy river ;). This park has two lazy rivers. Well one lazy and one less so ;). So the lazy river meanders around mostly near the kids’ section. It is like every lazy river you’ve ever experienced. Although the one thing it did better than others I’ve been on is their tubes had head rests! Beyond civilized.
The other lazy river is a thing dreams are made of. It’s basically a combo of lazy river and wave pool - so you move a fair bit faster and can’t quite nap through it, but it’s zero effort. Win. And THEN…. They fished all the kids out for high tide! I was told that this was worth experiencing before I came so when we got there we found out when high tide would be (4:30 for the curious) and were on that river floating our way around well before 4 ;). High tide they basically significantly increase the volume of water rushing in for the waves so you’re moving faster and with more drama throughout. At this point, it no longer really resembles a lazy river at all but it was tons of fun, lots of laughs, and in the end only got out cause we got in so early I was freezing! The water was warmer than the air, as the break in the heat wave finally caught us :)
So yeah - Saint Sauveur waterpark - 5 stars, fully recommend.
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| Some non-water-related activities we didn't try but that had cool names :) |
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