Weller Photography: Featured Hike!: Short Hills Provincial Park

The four of us set out yesterday along the trails at Short Hills Provincial Park.
Ron, Amy, Cory, and I had planned to take the 10-km Blue Trail (comprised of the Terrace Creek Trail & the Scarlet Tanager Trail & the Hemlock Valley Trail), which follows along the Southern part of the Park.

The hike was a bit strenuous, as the terrain is quite hilly in the park.
I may have to beg to differ with the name "Short Hills", as we found it quite contradictory.
The hills seemed to go on forever, which made for our backpacks to feel heavier than they were. The weather was quite overcast, with a threat of rain, however we continued on. This time of year really is a perfect hiking time. Not too many insects, and the temperature is quite pleasant. The early-fall breeze flowed well this day, lightly blowing the slowly-changing leaves
down to the ground around us. Some of the maples had already turned and their leaves already displaying wonderful oranges, yellows, and reds. The water was also flowing well with the late-summer rainfalls. And so many different types of toadstools and wild mushrooms growing in many various places, and other nooks and crannies along the trail.

We also happened upon a trickling Terrace Creek Falls, which I would love to visit again during the spring season when the waters are flowing well. A lovely falls this is. Not photographed often either from the reasearch that I have done. Hmm..

We explored the waterfall for a short while, then continued our first 10-km loop. Passing by many of the local power-line towers. We trudged on through the tall grasses, and over many more steep hills. Excellent for exercise! Such a challenging trail, (especially with a 20-lb pack) but well-worth the change in heartbeat. We completed the Blue Trail in just over 4 hours. We must have taken too many breaks. No matter. We took a short food break at the Wiley Rd. Parking lot entrance to the park, where we had left our vehicles.After lunch, we continued on along the Yellow Trail. This particular route is the one I have most used, however I have only completed small sections, such as the section accessible from Roland Rd. This particular section includes amazing view of Swayze Falls. We would learn later that not all of us in the group would enjoy the views of this Falls.

Click on this map below for the trail system of Short Hills Provincial Park.

Or you can visit the Friends of Short Hills Provincial Park website to view a map.

Not more than a km into the Yellow Trail, we unfortunately lost Ron & Amy. They had either walked too far ahead while Cory
and I were photographing bugs, but we lost them.Cory and I continued on for another 4km in search of them, but to no avail. We turned around thinking they had done the same,
and were possibly waiting back at the car. No luck. We then continued along the ending of the Yellow Trail, heading to Swayze
Falls from the opposite direction. Still no luck. Cory and I stopped at some remote picnic tables somewhere along the trail
and had a break, while hopefully allowing Ron & Amy to come walking along. We had walked in another 3km to this particular
spot, and judging by the dipping sun, we realized that there was an hour hike back to the vehicles, and we only had about an
hour and a half left of light. We headed back without Ron & Amy. Our worries were growing strong, due to the decreasing
amount of sun we had. Despite our tactics with trying to locate Ron & Amy, there were very few options as to what could have
happened to them. Since we hadn't run into them, they most likely turned around. Or they were hurt..which was a really huge
worry of ours. Each time we thought we heard people around the corner of the trail, we would send out our certain whistle we
all agreed upon, but no answer. People on bicycles, other hikers, and people walking their dogs were all we happened upon. Fortunately, Ron & Amy were waiting for us when we arrived back at the vehicles. Turns out they had continued along to Swayze
Falls, and had left messages for us along the way. We had missed the area with the messages. At the Falls, with still no Tom
or Cory, they turned around and went back along the same way they had come. This was our worry. As Ron & Amy were covering the top half of the trail, Cory and I were covering the bottom.Either way though, we all completed 20km yesterday. Certainly not in the fashion we had planned, but it was all very fun at
the same time.This does go to show however, that it is IMPORTANT to stick to your team. Try to never get seperated from your team when you are out in the woods. Too many possibilities. Too many things could go wrong. It's always best to not hike alone or seperated from your group.
Nothing went wrong for us though and we had a grand time despite being broken up in two teams!

To top it off..upon completion and upon leaving the park, we saw 10 deer! The Park is known for it's white tailed deer. Unfortunately I wasn't able to capture the deer on camera.

(But then again, I was able to when I was visiting Sleeping Giant Provincial Park..we'll get back to the trip photos soon! :) )

Here is a map of the Trails in Short Hills, the revisions are as per our second part of our hike yesterday. Ron & Amy are the Green Trail. The purple trail signifies the section Cory and I covered (not knowing that we were about 20 min or so behind Ron & Amy), thinking they had turned around, we decided to as well. The Red section shows where Cory and I covered the lower half of the park. Lots of hills. Ron & Amy probably had just as many. Haha to them! ;)