Day 15 – Hiking Day 13 – Wednesday September 20 2017

Day 15 – Hiking Day 13 – Wednesday September 20 2017
Sydenham Section K 44.2 St. Vincent-Sydenham Town Line to K18.7 4th Concession South
Distance – 26.94k
Time on the trail: 9:05













Ray shuttled us to our start point this morning. Our first excitement was following the trail into a crevice with a warning notice that read: “The trail ahead passes through a crevice. Consider using bypass trail if carrying heavy backpack or are claustrophobic.” It wasn’t very scary at all, although it was quite narrow. We safely passed through and out into the forest with its path of slippy rocks, roots, and ups and downs where extreme care was required. We passed through a type of forest that has now been named the cedar bones forest…..the dark trunks and leafless branches create an aura of spookiness but, the footing over layers of fallen cedar needles is kind to the feet. We were quickly into a brighter cedar forest, came to some beautiful lookouts over the countryside, and then we entered the area around the Bognor Marsh. Narrow unkempt trails over grown with bulrushes, grass, and beautiful flowers, consisting of mud….not just mud, but a heavy, extremely slippy, thick and gooey mud! At this point we were going so slowly that the mud couldn’t make us go any slower, and we were becoming hysterical! We laughed about our situation so hard we had tears in our eyes! We had mud all up our trouser legs, and our boots were weighted down with mud as if they were molded into cement blocks! Then we hit the marsh, and …yes….board walks! Seemed slightly ironical by this time!! Although we climbed the lookout and stared over the submerged land we didn’t see much wildlife. And then we were on our way through more forests and finally emerged to meet Ray around 6:30 p.m. Our longest day yet – 9.5 hours!

Robin's Update: This is one tough trail! I'll add up our kilometres to date tomorrow (maybe), but we are keeping to our schedule. 27k today. On some parts we barely manage 2k an hour; on other parts we can get up to 4 or 5. But we are on our feet 7 to 9 hours or more each day. Joanne - your brother (who just a few days ago set a world record on this trail) is beyond awesome!! 

 Note: Check out Adam Burnett: https://runningmagazine.ca/adam-burnett-bruce-trail-fkt/ 

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