Back To Elora Gorge

Saturday, May 17 – 2008
10:00 – 19:00
Start: 11:40
Roads: Damp from light rain
Visibility: 14km
Temp: +18C
Area: Elora, Ontario
Vehicle: Black Sunfire
Weather: Sunny with some cloud
Trail Conditions: Damp from rain
Hikers: Chuck, Wolf
Plan: Explore Elora
GPS: 43.6903 x -80.4190

10:00 Exactly 7 days from the last time we met at this spot, Chuck picked me up in his black sunfire at a local donut shop in St. Catharines. We had planned on having a friend Sharon and Brian join us, but Sharon had other appointments and Brian stated his gear was not ready for hiking today.

11:40 We arrived at the small town of Elora and headed towards the Quarry I saw using google maps after our last visit here April 27th. The quarry was closed and Chuck parked up the street to avoid getting a ticket by parking infront of the closed gates. As we slipped past the locked gates, a small quarry came into view. The water was very clear with visible vegetation and fish in the water. As we looked around and explored the quarry area, we could hear water running, but not see any waterfall. To the one side of the quarry, we could see an opening to a small, shallow cave which had water running through it. We scaled the quarry walls and got as close as we could to the opening, but without either swimming through the quarry, or using rappelling gear we could not get into the opening. As we were making it away from the cave back to level ground we came upon a woman in her late thirties and her daughter, the woman was very fit and ambled on over to the cave entrance very quickly to see if she could get closer than we did, sadly she could not. We stayed around just incase she needed any assistance, then made our way back to the car.

We headed to a baseball park we had found on a previous trip out this direction and hit the trails. Wolf with his camouflage pants, hiking shirt, adventure hat, v12 goggles and hike jacket. This time he had to wear his leather moccasins as tattoos were still not quite healed yet. Heading towards the ruins of the old mill, we explored the area and Chuck though of a possible scrounging dive here to see if there was anything valuable that had fallen or been thrown into the water over the years. However the water was tea colored and not very deep looking. There was another abandonment close by but we could not get into it as it was all boarded up and the walls were being held up by big wooden timbers. Not exactly safe looking.

We headed back towards the entrance of the Elora Gorge. We descended into the gorge and the rocks formations and th edge of the river were spectacular. We met up with a German tourist here who was taking photos of the spectacular beauty of this site.

It didn’t take long before the itch of the healing tattoos got the best of Wolf and he ended up barefoot as usual along the trails. Heading back along the trails towards the Elora Gorge campsites, we saw a couple down in the gorge who kept stopping every so often to make out on the trails. Eventualy we arrived at the small bridge with a sign that said it was restricted to only 8 tonnes, and crossed over it towards the camps. The couple who was making out in the gorge was standing on the bridge when we were crossing it.

14:30 We stopped at a vacant campsite to relax and have something to eat, take a few photos, and talk to Tori as she called that she was on break at work.

Slowly we made our way back towards the car along the opposite side of the gorge, and stopped at a great crevasse that we found once and took tons of photos. Chuck and I joked we should buy a small reproduction gold idol like in Indiana Jones to use as a prop in our photos.

15:45 We arrived back at the car from what is always too short of a day on the trails, and headed towards home.

16:50 we stopped at a Pioneer petrol station and I gave Chuck a little bit towards todays petrol bill as petrol is $1.23 a litre here.

16:55 We stopped in at the Grasshopper hippy store and I met a girl in there who also had a tattoo on her right foot. We discussed how it went for her and she said she really adored mine.

19:00 We arrived home back in Niagara Region and had some supper. Sadly this day was far too short.