Niagara Gorge Waterfall – 200804-06

Sunday, April 13 – 2008
13:15 – 16:00
Start: 13:20
Roads: Dry / Clear
Visibility: 24km
Temp: +4C
Area: Camden, Ontario
Vehicle: GMC Suburban
Weather: Bright & Sunny
Trail Conditions: Mud & Flooding
Hikers: Tori, Wolf, Lupis, Merlin, Morgana
Plan: Find the old rock climbing spot
GPS: 43 09.00N 79 26.55W

12:00 We left home bound for Beamer Falls conservation area
12:40 Arrive at Beamers Falls with keen sandals, gaiters, thermal pant bottoms, hiking shirt and coveralls. Sadly I misplaced my ESS v12 goggles and had to wear my old safety sunglasses which I recently found in my hiking jacket when I pulled it out for spring.
The weather was warm and there was little wind. I would have cooked here being as there were several girls in shorts and flip flops on the trail. We decided to go somewhere else as this was not a good spot for the gear we brought with us.

13:15 We decided it would be safest to goto Camden at a place we read about in a rock climbing magasine and visited one many years ago to find a great rock climbing wall. Upon a return trip to this site we found an overturned and abandoned Suzuki Sidekick on the trails.

13:15 Arrive on-site to find it was cold here, and empty. At least I wouldn’t cook here this time. As we readied ourselves an elderly man on an ATV approached us advising us it was muddy and we’d have fun hiking the trails. This was the first time I had decided to go hiking with my Ipod Nano 4gb that me mum had won at work a few weeks ago.

13:30 The trails were so full of water, we had to head across the woods tro hopefully find the Bruce Trail which runs along this area.

13:35 We hit a decent trail and head northward

13:50 The dogs find something to roll-in, it turns out to be a skull of a dead animal. We took some photographs and insisted Merlin no longer roll in it.

14:10 We came past more flooded trails to the edge of the escarpment, there – in front of us, was a large, steep drop-off. As we got closer, it turned out to be the exact area we had hoped to find. 2-4m rock faces which would be great for climbing practice. We sat barefoot on the rocks and were joined by a large, all-white Malamute with one blue eye and one brown eye. Wolf set-up the old Magellan Map410 GPS unit & we waited for it to initialise and get th exact GPS co-ordinates for today. Unfortunately this older GPS unit only uses lat/longs and not standard GPS co-ordinates which came up as 43 09.00N by 79 26.54W. I could type the numbers in google maps and it would auto-convert it for us.

14:35 Head to the base of the cliffs we are standing on top of.

14:49 The base of the large rock cliffs reveals some incredible sheer rock cliffs. Almost 1km in length. I texted Brian to tell him about it and gave him the GPS co-ordinates so he could check them out on google earth before we came home.

15:10 After heading southbound on the trails, we started to realise that we may have crossed two trails – not one. We were lost.

15:14 We came to a series of power lines which we had not passed originally.

15:20 Wolf checked around for footprints or hike-pole marks in the ground to which there were none. Off in the distance we spotted a road, the only road in the area which we knew our truck lay at the end of. Also farm buildings could be seen in that direction.

15:45 Crossing through the woods we came upon the trail and could see the local road and Tori spotted the truck very close by. We bee-lined it towards the truck. Merlin had been rolling in dead animal carcasses and who knows what else and needed a quick wash in a ditch. We relaxed in the beauty and solitude of this place for a while, then packed up and headed for home.

16:00 Shortly before heading for home I decided to boot-up the Magellan Map 410 GPS unit on the tailgate of the truck and get a GPS reading of where we were parked for future reference – 43 8.60N by 79 26.33W