Hike #38 July 25 2021

It's a full moon, and since I sleep with my blinds partially open, I'm awake at 4:27 am, over a half hour before my alarm is set to go off. Meh, why not get up early? Feel less rushed. Walk Annie in the moonlight. 

I've done a bit of googling about this stretch but nothing prepared me for driving up a gravel road at a 60 degree angle to get to the end parking spot. 

I haven't been in this section of Ontario and I want to explore it more, but I arrive at 8 am to hit the trail and by the time we wrap up, everything is closed PLUS I am so stinky and dirty. When I'm done the end-to-end, I would like to come back to certain sections and made day trips of seeing the sights, and not just focus on hiking. 

I know the area is popular among climbers and this is why. 

Someone has attached anchors to this rock. Holy shit. 

While JC is super cautiously admiring the view, and I'm off in the bushes looking for a place to pee, I hear the noise of a large animal come running up. Their breaths are heavy. Their footfalls are too. I see a black blur, and then the owner calls back their large angry dog that we both thought was a bear. JC is shook and I do not love that it all happened while I had my back turned. 

After reading way too much about ghost pipes vs pinesaps, I can ascertain that this is ghost pipe. We spot it on two occasions on this hike. 

JC had mentioned the Metcalfe Side Trail, so we start climbing into this crevice over giant rocks. I really love the side trail blue blaze. So much so that I tattooed it on my leg last fall. My constant reminder that I'm not on the main path, but I'm still having fun.*

*Actually, as I write this, I am not having fun. I'm wrestling with BIG GRIEF FEELINGS over the two-year mark since having seen N for a whole 20 minutes in a parking lot. I've cried. I've gotten stoned on a weeknight. I hate every minute of this. I want this pain to go away THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

Here's a bunch of photos to distract you from my pain...

Here are some mushrooms

That last one is a chanterelle, which I only confirm two days later and after JC and I have a talk about chanterelles having thinner stalks. I was wrong. 

Hey, surprise waterfalls! We're in the Duncan Caves park, but I can find zero info on these waterfalls. 

Shortly after the snack alarm goes off and we start looking for a spot to sit and take in the view. As I make my way to a lookout I remark that it should have a bench. And then a bench fucking appears!

By this point, my knee is unhappy. So unhappy. I mark this at 1:15 pm, and later calculate we were just 9 km in at this point. Thankfully a nice road section appears and I can just concentrate on putting my feet down on a flat surface instead of picking thru rocks and roots. 

This is the level of dirt I enjoy. Getting dirty reminds me of being a kid; my therapist has been trying to get me to do inner child work. My inner child does not want to talk about being a child. 

For some reason, this is the hike where JC gets deep about his relationships, and I tell him about not trusting the interest I'm getting from someone online, because he's too hot* for me so it's obviously catfishing, right? It's so good to have these convos. EW and I had these convos before he got all partnered up. I miss that friendship. 

*Once I add him on WhatsApp, he goes silent. Fuck this dating shit*

My right knee hates this hike. Like, HATES IT. And my left shoulder and arm are numb from fuck-knows-what (likely a pinched nerve). I'm super angry at my body for pulling this shit when I finally get it together to get active. 

This is more of an exciting sign for JC than me, as I need to go back and finish two sections that he's already completed. Tobermory is 415 km away. I am having Tobermory memories as of late (it's been a year since I left and never went back) and I also have to avoid photos of it because it still fucking hurts. 

I can't believe that dude ruined an entire PENINSULA for me!

We had talked about going barefoot for the last bit of this hike and JC goes for it. I need a bit more time in my boots, so decide to keep them on until we reach the plaque on the map. Which is attached to this rock face (look to the left).

Did my knee stop hurting as soon as I took my boots off? YUP. This hiking has been hard on my feet as well. I have toenail trauma that requires a fucking $50 session with a chiropodist with a dremel tool every few months. 

I arrive home dirty and smelly and tired but stop for a double burger with bacon and cheese just 10 minutes from home. I know I'm not feeding myself enough on these hikes, but I'm also wrestling with not wanting to gain back the weight I lost. Hello disordered eating! 

The next day JC lets me know he won't have access to a car again until September so we will figure things out, I think. I had gotten used to our Sunday routine. 

I have therapy on Tuesday night and talk about how I just hit the two-year mark of the last time I saw my kid. 

And mid-week my physiotherapist tells me I need to do strength training if I'm going to keep this up. 

I'm having a whole lot of grief and I'm mad at my body. I don't know how to build my body up and I'm terrible at doing things that are good for me (my therapist links this to no one caring for me as a kid, but that's really just a fucking THEME for my life). I finally call my dr because I want to talk about ADHD (is it ADHD? is it trauma brain? Will we ever know? Will I be able to take meds while dealing with high blood pressure?) and he's not available until mid August. 

I'm spiralling. 

Hike #37 - July 18 2021

JC has gone ahead and planned out the entire Beaver Valley section for us. This section is 119.9 km long and he's split it into 6 hikes, ranging from 17 to 24 km hikes. 

Is this the hike when my knee decides NOPE? I think so. More on that later. 

The Beaver Valley section is deceiving. Because at a certain point, it turns SOUTH and you start moving AWAY from the northern terminus. Fuck that. 

In any case, we are doing the shuttle thing and have 24 km planned. We're back on resort/ski hill territory. 

I love these tiny mushrooms and the moss and the rotting log and the shadow!

This hike had something different around each bend. Forests to streams to fields to waterfalls. 

We found the perfect snack spot on this rock formation. 

More great mushroom friends.

I stopped myself from writing 'I have a crush on my hiking partner' in the notebook found here. 

Oh, this is the hike where I suddenly needed to take a shit (thanks stomach meds!) and disappear into the woods with a pack of tissues and a bag to put them in and have a giant dump while leaned up against a tree. I covered it with some bark and returned only slightly embarrassed, plus scratched up from going into the bushes. 

In any case, it was a very green hike and I only wanted to cry a little from knee pain afterwards. I end up taking myself to physio mid week. 

The drive home throws me off because the sun is red, but I initially mistake it for the moon because it's red from forest fires. 

SUN

MOON

Stats:

starting near marker 0.0

ending near marker 23.8

total hiked today: 23.8 (plus some road walking to get to the end car)

total Bruce Trail hiked since starting: 324.5 km

Hike #36 July 11 2021

Still back-logged and trying to piece today hikes. I realize that part of the issue is that I've been hiking on Sundays, so I come home exhausted and don't have a rest day before launching into my work week on Monday morning. 

Because I had joined JC on where he was on the Blue Mountain section, there was a 14 km section I still needed to do at the beginning. We park at Lavender Cemetery, just shy of the 0.0 marker for the Blue Mountain section.

My IG post from this hike reminds that this is a mosquito heavy hike and that they bit through my clothing. My heart reminds me that this hike took me to Noisy River, where my nephew's ashes were scattered. I had checked in with EW beforehand, with the idea of continuing along the river to his parents' property, home of a private waterfall. I didn't visit on this hike, but I would like to go back one day. 

This bridge has been closed for months and I was prepared to simply take off my boots and cross the river the hard way, but the bridge is actually almost intact if you ignore a 3 foot section in the middle. 

Rain brings mosquitos, but it also brings mushrooms. 

I really like that last one, which reminds me of an ear. 

Lots of great water to commune with here. 

We also find this cool plant under some pines, which I thought was ghost pipe but turns out to be another parasitic plant called pinesap. 

On this hike, I hit the 300 km marker at some point. I've completed one-third of the trail. It was probably at some unremarkable point, so I declare this spot as the 300 km mark. 

After we shuttle back to our starting point, we hang out at the cemetery for quite awhile, checking out the gravestones and such. 

Stats:

starting near marker 0.0

ending near marker 14.1

total hiked today: 14.1 

total Bruce Trail hiked since starting: 300.7 km