Spencer Gorge Hike 200803-16

Sunday, March 16 – 2008
10:15 – 15:30
Start: 10:15
Roads: Wet from snow, Ice Patches
Visibility: 24km
Temp: +1C
Area: Spencer Gorge
Vehicle: Toyota Matrix
Weather: Bright & Sunny, no wind
Trail Conditions: Packed Snow and ice
Hikers: Tori, Wolf, Brian, Chuck
Plan: Hike to the base of the large waterfall
GPS: 43.2794 x -79.9789

10:00 We arrived at the parking lot after a very unusual ride up with Brian at the helm.

10:04 Chucks hydration bladder leaked all over my blue coveralls and soaked them. Thankfully my thermal underwear is somewhat waterproof. They felt very cold to put on, but hopefully along the trail my body heat will warm them up and I won’t notice it.

10:15 We hit the trails to find the steel lookout to see the big waterfall and sheer canyon walls. Tori and I have been here many years ago and thought it would be best to come back and rappel into the gorge. Sadly, neither Brian nor Chuck have their top-rope certification for rappelling like Tori and I do.

10:20 We headed up along the ice and snow packed trails, thankfully we canceled the snow-shoe rental yesterday as they would have been useless today and really gotten in the way.

10:40 We found a bridge with a stream running under it, and made our way to the edge of the escarpment where the stream turned into a very tiny waterfall. We looked over the edge to see a 2m drop which would have been difficult to navigate, but a little too dangerous for all of us.

11:12 We found that the big waterfall runs off and leads out to an old train bridge in Dundas, just beside Dundas District Public School which is noted as the most haunted school in Ontario, Canada. Beside the school is an old train tunnel which Tori and I have done some rappelling before and I have done some nude photograph shoots in some of the ruins there. We figured that in summer, the old train tunnel may be a better entrance point than rappelling.

11:16 We found some great out-croppings to rest, journal and photograph.

11:40 We found an area which looked like we could descent the steep canyon walls to the valley below.

11:48 We started our descent and snaked our way though the treacherous, steep, rocky walls lined with trees and loose shale. Thankfully we had our hiking poles to help the descent. They were very helpful in stopping us from toppling over most of the time.

12:50 Brian walked down some slippy areas and twisted his knee a bit.

13:12 We stopped at the base of the huge hill and rested. Tori and Brian took some pain killers and we all had a few energy bars.

13:18 Some large trains passed by while we were relaxing and we took some photographs of them. We headed out on the trails to find a new route home as we would not be able to visit the large waterfall on this trip. Oddly this will be one of the first hikes we’ve done and not accomplished our goals. Perhaps we will be able to in another visit. We headed out along the train tracks until we came across a trail heading to the north, which would start to take us back to the parking lot. We asked a passing hiker who said that it takes us towards the small waterfall, then back to the parking lot. We did not realise there was two waterfalls!

13:30 We started the journey Northward to find out we were on the Bruce Trail again – at least we knew the lady hiker had given us proper directions as we were starting to wonder about where we were headed.

14:03 After a long hike along the stream towards the waterfall, to our surprise a waterfall came into view!

14:20 We stood at the base of Websters falls and got some photographs. This was the first time Brian had ever been close to a waterfall. We took some photographs of all of us infront of the falls then started to heard up the long, black steel staircase which had white blazes on it as well.

14:40 We climbed back up the large steel stops and saw lots of people. We had to stop and rest for a while, I also took the time to write in my hike journal.

15:08 We arrived back at the car, somewhat exhausted as it was a long hike back, and frustrated because we still couldn’t get to the large waterfall we wanted to see. We found Brian had a $5.00 ticket on his windscreen, but he had some cash and we paid the ticket and put it in the nearby box. We stripped off our clothes. Wolf was wearing his Faded Glory boots, gaiters, blue jumpsuit, facemask, and for the first time ESS v12 goggles. Tori wore her rubber boots, nylon pants, and parka. This was the first real hike with the V12 goggles. They performed very well as they did not fog or get damp water on the inside at all. It was a great hike.

15:25 Wolf took the helm and we headed for home.