This was a hard day. I was tired, sore, cold, grumpy, and achy – not the way I had hoped to arrive at the end. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Today wasn’t going to be my favourite day of hiking, despite how lovely my instagram pictures look. Don’t get me wrong, some of the hike was gorgeous, some of it not so much.

But overall, today could have easily changed my love of hiking to something a little less friendly.
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The day’s home base was the same place as the day before in the parking lot at the Mohawk Ice rink. It was another cold morning that required multiple layers and a toque and gloves. The hike organizer gave us the usual morning instructions before leaving the parking lot. This would have been a great time to remind people of trail etiquette – particularly that if someone is behind you to offer to let them pass. For some reason, so many people on this particular hike had never heard about this etiquette before so a refresher would have been nice.

Third weekend in a row now of hiking 27-33KMS/day. Easy peasy now. For the next two days, we tackled the second half of our Iroquoia Bruce Trail end-to-end.

By the end of this weekend we will have hiked 192 KMS total in seven days of hiking. That’s 70 KMS from Caledon Hills end-to-end + 122 KMS from Iroquoia end-to-end. I think we can be proud of that – sore muscles, achy knees, bruises, black toenails and all!

Home base for the next two days was the Mohawk Ice Rink. This is where we would be walking to each day. The most awesome thing about this particular meeting point – is that it had a washroom! Hikers rejoice! Not only could we go before we got on the bus, but it also gave us a place to go and change after too. As someone who is truly not a fan of doing nature’s call in nature, this was a big ol’ Bonus.
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This picture (above) was the view from where we started the day’s hike. Same place as the previous Sunday – Syndenham Look Out. We weren’t the only ones there that morning. Many folks were there, coffee in hand, to watch the sun rise. It had just come over the horizon about 15 minutes before we got there. Quite spectacular.

It was a very brisk morning on Day 2 of our Iroquoia Bruce Trail end-to-end adventure. We got in the car to drive to the meeting point and boy, was I grateful for heated seats! Such a small luxury but so much appreciated in that wee hour before dawn when despite all the layers of merino wool, I still felt a chill. It was only October 14 and you could already see your breath.

The starting point for today was the Sydenham Look Out. We would be walking east and north on the trail back to Mount Nemo Conversation Area.

There we are bright eyed and ready to tackle the trail ahead. It was promising to be a great day.
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I’ve mentioned before that we like to keep our own pace, that we like to let the crowd hike ahead so that we can feel like we’re hiking on our own and not in a group of 80+ hikers. I don’t like to feel rushed when I hike. It’s about the journey.