Featured Hike! Queenston - Decew

I must interrupt the 10 Trip Writeup again to bring to you news of my recent hike along the Bruce Trail.

A good friend of mine, Ron and I set out from Queenston Heights Park yesterday and hiked the 36km stretch along the trail to Decew Falls. April dropped the two of us off yesterday morning at the Southern Terminus Bruce Trail Cairn at Queenston Heights at 7:30am. Ron and I shook hands, and cheered to wish each other good luck and set out to complete our Decew Falls goal.

The trip took us 11.5 hours to complete, as we walked into Decew Falls by 7pm. We were exhausted. We still are after that amount of hiking. Our feet, legs and shoulders all sore from the hike.

We didn't have to contend with too many bugs except for the odd annoying bout of mosquitos. One thing we did really have to watch out for was the poison ivy, which was growing in the plenty alongside the trail. I was definitely wearing my hiking shoes for this trip. My sandals are comfy, but not for 36km and huge amounts of poison ivy!

Just past Fireman's Park, we had walked nearly 6km of roadwalk which took us along Mewburn, Mountain, Garner, and Warner Roads. The sights of the farm houses, rail tracks, and other farming-type equipment was, well, country-like for the outkirts of Niagara Falls. Not our idea of backpacking a hiking trail, however the Bruce Trail does entail many km of road walk.

Road-walking is especially hard on the feet and the rest of the body. The sun was out with not a cloud in the sky.we were over-heating sometimes ....we were exhausted already..and we weren't even halfway! We needed to find a good rest-stop. The trick was to find shade along our road-walk. A section along Mewburn Road, near the corner of Mountain Road gave us a good shade opportunity. Our plan with rest-stops was to follow an every-5km plan. Mewburn and Mountain Rd is the 11km mark. At Woodend Conservation Area, the trail winds its way through the park for a 3km stretch. By the time we reached this spot, we had already completed nearly 16km of our hike (including 6km of road!) We were getting short on water (I had brought 2.5 litres and Ron had brought 4 litres). We were also concerned with time, so we had decided that the extra 4km wasn't really worth it becoming more thirsty over. We continued on along the Paul Naray Silurian Trail. Blue blazes were painted on various trees along the trail, marked just as the white-blazed Bruce Trail which joined up with this side trail near the escarpment ledge.

The trail then took us past the Royal Niagara Escarpment Golf Course, then the historic Third Welland Canal, which gave us plenty of amazing views of the canal, the waterfalls within, as well as abandoned cars rusting away on the canal floor. The trail then exited at Glendale Avenue, and led us over the Glendale Bridge, crossing the present-day Welland Canal. At the 20km mark, we lost the trail as we were following the Government Road next canal. A nice route this was, as it passed by the canal and the historic factories beside. Near here, the trail apparently goes up a set of steps near the St.Lawrence Seaway offices, however we had missed the blaze for this turn and continued along "another trail" beside the canal. We were teated to an Algoma Steel Ship from Sault Ste. Marie going through, as well as a lovely wall mural on a local Thorold factory. The unfortunate part about this part of our hike, was that we didn't realize that we were on the wrong trail due to some misleading trail blazes. Due to this, we had to walk through the City of Thorold along Merritt Street. Stopping at first of course, for our every-5km rest stop at a small local park and picnic bench. Luckily, we were able to stop in at a Convenience Store to replenish our water supply. Perfect timing as both Ron and I were out of water.The Bruce Trail picked up again just down the street at Merritt Street and Ball Avenue. Turns out, if we had continued correctly along the trail, we would have never reached a store or any other water source for another 3km. More roadwalk, but well worth the diversion, as we would have most certainly expired somewhere on the trail without water in our systems! We found Ball Avenue and the Brue Trail again. Following the yellow blazes of the Merritt Trail, (as we had found ourselves adjacent to the Bruce on the other side of the canal) until we met up with the Bruce Trail again, this time at the old ruins of the Second Welland Canal. This relic of the steam-era served well as a well-needed rest area.

We continued on, succumbing to more roadwalk, along Glendale Avenue and Tremont Drive. This was definitely a test for our tired bodies. Glendale was busy with afternoon traffic..many a person were staring at us, probably wondering where we just came from. We trudged on, giving the rest of our energy to climbing Tremont Drive and walking through the high-end subdivisions at the crest of the escarpment in St.Catharines. Trees greeted us at the end of the subdivisions, which were a welcome sight after passing through society at the bottom of the Niagara Escarpment. Along the way, we came across a very beautiful wood carving, you will see the photo below. Kudos to those responsible for the carving. The trail then winded its way around the woods beside Glenridge Avenue, and also along it to the crest.
Another climb!

Near the crest of the hill on Glenridge, the trail took us back into the woods, which we followed until we entered onto the rear campus of Brock University. The trail then took us along the well-worn footpaths of the University campus, across the hilly terrain of the escarpment, and to the boardwalks of nearby Lake Moodie. We reached Lake Moodie and the Decew House by 630pm. Seeing that the sun was starting to slowly dip down below Lake Moodie and knowing that the trail winded 4km around the west side of the lake and over to Decew Falls,we decided to say goodbyes to the Bruce Trail until another time.The last stretch was very dificult as we had to walk along Decew Road, past the historic Decew House, to reach the Falls. This stretch was our last 2km stretch. We cheered as we arrived at the parking lot to Decew Falls and cheered even more to be able to get our backpacks off of us. We didn't want to put those back on for a very long time! We layed out on the picnic tables and breathed a huge sigh of accomplishment.

Altogether we hiked 36km. Despite the changes to where we walked, that we needed to make along the way, we felt and still do feel accomplished by our hike.

The longest hike that I had been on previous to this was a full 15km, while Ron had only completed 21km. Today was a goal-setting. Today we hiked nearly half of the Niagara section of the Bruce Trail. The Niagara section of the Bruce Trail continues on until Grimsby, where the Iroquoia section begins.We hope to bring you more featured-hikes in the near future!
Enjoy the photographs!

~Tom