Winners of the Take a Hike! Challenge
Throughout the month of September, Welllness@Work challenged faculty and staff to Take a Hike! and explore the outdoors.
Three winners were randomly selected from the contest and were awarded a prize.
Below are the Take a Hike! Challenge winners:
Gerrit Bos
Gerrit has a long term goal of hiking the 900km of the Bruce trail end to end. He's done about 133km so far! Below are the hikes he did in September:
- Bruce Trail Iroquoia section from Claremont access to Scenic Drive/Highway 403 access in Hamilton. About 5km Bruce Trail, about 12km for the day.
- Bruce Trail Iroquoia section from the Scenic Drive/Highway 403 access to the access on Governor’s road in Ancaster. About 13 km along the trail. "A trail angel (co-worker) shuttled me between where I parked and the trail access."
Matt Searle
Each week in September, Matt went on a different hike including:
- Crane Park
- Pinehurst Lake (part of Grand River Conservation Authority in Ayr ON)
- Riverside Park (Speed River Trail)
- Algonquin Park (a canoe trip with over 18km of portages total)
Mary Payne
Mary is part of a group that has been hiking end to end on the Bruce Trail since 2015. Similar to Gerrit, her goal is to hike all 900km of the main trail! As of September, Mary had completed 600km. Below are a few highlights from her hiking in September, including some photos Mary captured:
- 43km on the Peninsula section near Tobermory. This section is considered the most rugged of the trail by many. It is remote , rocky and extremely beautiful.
- Both Saturday September 7th and Sunday September 8th we were hiking by 8 am and hiked for 6-8 hours each day. Longer hikes of ~18 and 25 km. Saturday highlights included Driftwood Cove, Lord Hunt’s Hole, Overhanging Point, several boulder beaches and the Grotto finishing with a very rugged hike along the cliff edge through Stormhaven to Halfway Log Dump. Sunday highlights included a rugged hike along the cliff edge to High Dump where a rope assists in the descent to the beach. An old logging road took us to Crane Lake gate and we finished with a road section of 8 km.
- September 21 and 22- Hiked 21 km on Saturday and 18 km on Sunday- It was warm/humid with only a brief shower on Sunday. Some highlights included super high cliffs, scrambling around the Devil’s Monument flowerpot and down to the beach, passing the tallest white pine on the Bruce Peninsula and a spectacular lookout at Cape Chin North. As well a long boulder beach at Cape Chin south, Smokey Head, Reeds Dump and White Bluff with lookouts south to Cape Croker and north to Cabot Head and a stretch of road round Isthmus Bay into Lion’s Head with lovely homes and caves. Thankfully no Rattlesnakes.
