 “They’re called the Caledon ‘Hills’ for a reason,” said our end-to-end organizer as we sat on the bus ready to take on day 1 of 3 on the Fall Colours End-to-End. It was Thanksgiving weekend – the Canadian one – and over the three days ahead we would hike the entire length of the Caledon Hills section of the Bruce trail, all 70.2 KMS in rain, fog and through the most spectacular forests glowing in yellow, red, and orange leaves. We were up before dawn and on the road while it was still night to drive to the first meeting point for Day 1 of our second official Bruce Trail end-to-end hike. As with all club organized end-to-end hikes, we parked the car at the spot where we will end the day. We got on the bus with all the other excited and eager hikers and drove to the starting point – the northern point of the Caledon Hills sections, just south of Mono Mills. As we usually do, we lingered a bit and let the speedy hikers take the lead. I’m not a fan of walking hurriedly in a pack and instead prefer to hike at my own pace. Thankfully there was a bit of side road to get our muscles warmed up before hitting the trail and off we went with 25.8 KMS ahead. Soon after, the path veered into a forest and onto a treacherous path. Treacherous – that was the word the hike organizer used to describe this section of the trail and she was right. It was somewhere along this sections that I tweaked my right knee and felt a twinge. The twinge slowly evolved into pain and by the time I reached the first rest stop, I couldn’t put on my knee brace fast enough hoping it would help ease the pain. I also took an Advil – yay for pain relief, right?! (I probably should have been wearing the support wrap but it’s generally my left knee not right that has caused me problems in the past so it came as a bit of a terrible surprise – lesson learned). But, being the trooper I like to think I am, I decided I would walk through the pain and I’m glad I did. The next section was so incredibly beautiful I’m so glad I continued. The air was heavy as it was quite humid – you could see it and you could feel the mist. I almost expected to see Jamie and Claire Fraser come riding around the corner on horseback with tartan blowing in the wind.   Day 1 offered some interesting sights along with a mystery. Just off the side of the trail there was an abandoned 1930s Chevy. Yes, a car. There wasn’t much left of it, just the shell. Many years ago, this area was a maple syrup farm so there would have been a road. It does make one wonder – how did it get there? It’s fun to imagine – perhaps someone innocently took a wrong turn, got a flat, went for help and never came back for the car; or perhaps it’s more of an illicit tale of bank robbers hiding in the woods and their car ran out of gas and they simply abandoned it. The truth is out there and someone was more curious than me and found the family who just abandoned it there. Sadly, no bank robbers in the family. More on that here Day 2 started on the Cheltenham Badlands. The Bruce Trail doesn’t directly access the badlands but it’s just a short 325 meter dash up a side trail to the newly built boardwalk built to protect the area. Despite how cool the badlands look from a distance – totally cool and unlike anything else you’ll see on the trail – the surround mud/clay on the trail made for a very slippery go. More on the badlands here. After the badlands there was a little road walking, then more forest trail and then something called the Devil’s Pulpit. Normally I would’ve been kind of stoked to tackle the staircase made of boulders with a safety chain to help you descend, but that sharp pain in my knee kind ruined the moment for me. I felt like a little old lady taking one step at a time, going down backwards. Sadly there is no picture of me on the stairs nor of the stairs themselves as it was only after we walked away from it that we realized we forgot to snap a photo. The rest of the hike took us around Forks of the Credit park – full of folks out and about on Thanksgiving Sunday – and then a few kilometers along Escarpment Road back to our car. Somewhere on that road we passed, what we think is Elton John’s house. Or at least we passed the gates and gate house, which was bigger than your average Toronto home. As we walked by we heard someone say, “so, people actually do live like that!”  We nearly missed the bus on Day 3 as we drove through torrential rain and got stuck behind slow drivers on the way to the meeting point. This was also the day that we had decided not to pack our rain gear. For the past two days they had called for rain and it didn’t rain. We stupidly assumed that this day would be the same. But the rain wasn’t meant to last long thankfully. We literally arrived at the meeting place hurriedly put our boots on and we hopped on the bus with just two minutes to spare. And then after the rain came the very thick fog. We stepped off the bus and the hikers out front just disappeared into the mist. It was already pretty quiet because it was a holiday but the fog blanketed everything in silence. It was all sorts of cool. The day continued along some road – never truly pleasant but must be done – before hitting the forest trail again. The last section through the Glen Haffy Conversation Area was really quite nice despite the ups and downhills and the ever nagging knee pain. Have I mentioned how grateful I am for pain relief? Despite the knee pain we hiked one of our record paces, which surprised us needless to say. Day three was 23.5 KMS, and we completed it in 6 hours including breaks. Our normal paces is about 4 KM / hour but when the terrain has a lot of uphill and downhill we’re generally slower. So yay us! The reward for hiking three days, 70 KMS, is a badge. Just a badge. But somehow it felt like a gold medal in persistence! An end-to-end can’t happen without the amazing volunteers who give up their time to greet hikers at the rest stops (always with a smile and more often than not with home baked goodies). Huge shout out to the amazing trail organizer with impeccable attention to detail, incredible energy and encouragement, and the ability to show up in the middle of a forest holding a pumpkin bucket full of Halloween candy and some cheers – Thank you! Thank you to the Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club for producing this great map of the section in relation to the entire Bruce Trail. What hiker doesn’t love a great map! 
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