Oct 1st, 2022: KM 726.3 - 749.2

(Peninsula 0.0 - 22.9)

Finally got a 2022 hike in yesterday with Chris and Eily!

After an early wake up and a long drive (including some bad directions from Google), we finally met at around 9am at the endpoint of the hike then drove back to Wiarton for a 9:30am start. 

Had to take a peek at the new Willie before we started.

After leaving the park, the trail followed a road along the water's edge for awhile.

The trail left the road then up to the "famous" spiral staircase. Here we met our first group of other people, two ladies carrying a dog, coming down the stairs. They asked if I planned to carry Eily up the stairs.

There were ruins of a mansion, "The Corran", a 17 room house that was last occupied in 1960. 

It was pretty chilly when we began, but warmed up as we walked, eventually turning into a beautiful day. However, all of the dewy / wet grass meant I had soaked feet for almost the entire hike :/

The trail then went through some farmers properties, and across a couple of roads, before eventually coming back to the top of the escarpment.

For the next few hours, the trail mainly followed the top of the escarpment northward. The views were often obscured by trees, with an occasional vista to stop at to peek out.

Chris filed some kind of wild bird (a partridge?). It was making noises like a rooster.

Eventually the trail and escarpment cut away from the lake, and we followed it into a forest. This part of the trail was really cool, with giant cracks in the ground sometimes going down dozens of feet. 

A staircase took us down to the bottom where we walked through the forest some more.

Yikes a snek!

Then the trail went back up to the amazing Knapp Lookout, which just looks out directly into some trees. Maybe there used to be a view?

There was a log book, with a couple of signatures from that day. Funny, we only saw 2 groups of people the whole day, and one group was of people working to maintain the trail.

After 6.5 hours of hiking we made it back to the car. I'm pretty sure the last section was longer than the map showed, as we expected to be done about 30 minutes faster, and we were on track for that until just the last 2 kms (according to the map).

After another long drive home, Eily completely crashed.

Another great hike! Seems that we're going to have some great views on all of the remaining hikes. Looking forward to the next one!