Hike #1: Bruce Trail – Dufferin Hi-lands

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Distance hiked: 13.2km
Location: Bruce Trail, Ontario
Date: January 4, 2020

In an effort to spend more time outdoors (and to exercise more), one of my New Year’s resolution and goals for 2020, is to complete the 52 Hikes Challenge. The idea of the challenge is that you hike 52 hikes throughout the year. And after spending the holidays cooped up inside recovering from the flu, I was ready to get some fresh air and move around.

For the past few years we’ve been trying to complete the Bruce Trail – an 885km trail in Ontario that follows the escarpment from Niagara to Tobermory. To date we’ve completed about a third of the trail. We drove up to the end of the Dufferin Hi-Land section and hiked along a new part of the Bruce Trail. It’s been a pretty mild winter so far and we figured that conditions on the trail wouldn’t be too bad.

We parked on Mulmur-Nottawasaga Townline in front of the cemetery. The first little stretch of the trail was along the road before it turns onto a smaller unmaintained road. The trail was relatively flat, which was good considering that there were some snowy and icy patches.

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One of the highlights along this portion of the trail includes walking by a partially frozen waterfall.

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Another highlight was coming across a porcupine on the trail.

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The unmaintained road eventually narrows through the woods before reaching a farmer’s field. We crossed the field and turned around at the road.

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The hike took about three hours to complete. We were pretty tired by the time we finished up and returned to the car. Overall, it was a lovely day for a hike as the temperature hovered around 0°C. One hike down, 51 left to go.

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My progress on the 52 Hike Challenge can be found here

14 thoughts on “Hike #1: Bruce Trail – Dufferin Hi-lands

  1. Janet says:

    Good luck to you on the 52 hike challenge. That’s a lot of hiking, and a lot of fun. I’ll be watching and gaining inspiration from you.

    • WanderingCanadians says:

      It helps that I had some inspiration from reading about how you completed the 52 Hike Challenge last year. It sounds like such an awesome challenge and I’m looking forward to hitting the trail again soon (even though it’s winter).

  2. bernieLynne says:

    That’s a hike/week so I guess you know what you are doing every weekend for the year! I will look forward to the updates. Great to have the Bruce Trail that close. I am sure you have other locations you will be highlighting as well.

    • WanderingCanadians says:

      Haha, yes, I do anticipate that my weekends will be pretty busy with hiking. I’ll also have to strategically plan my holidays this year to incorporate some hiking. I’m looking forward to exploring more of the trails in Southern Ontario though, including the Bruce Trail.

    • WanderingCanadians says:

      You can’t go wrong with a hike along the Bruce Trail. The section that runs through Tobermory and the Bruce Peninsula is my favourite. The terrain is tougher, but the views overlooking Georgian Bay are simply stunning. Thanks for reading and commenting.

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