Sun, Oct 25 2009 - Slowpoke hike: Rattlesnake Point to Crawford Lake and back (View Original Event Details)
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It was a beautiful day for hiking! And it seemed that many other people thought so too - the Rattlesnake Point and Crawford Lake conservation areas were packed! While we were in the park areas it was a non-stop jam of people - hikers, campers, climbers, photographers, dogs, squeezebox players...but as soon as we got out on to the trail the crowd thinned a bit although it was still a steady stream of hikers. This is a popular hiking trail!
We had a slightly late start but since three people phoned me from the first train at Yorkdale I pushed back the start slightly so their long trip from downtown was not in vain - Sunday morning hikes are always difficult to manage due to the subway shut down, but we did manage to get everyone on the road by 9:45.
Twelve "pokey" hikers and 3 dogs set out on the busy trail and the first leg of the journey really led up to the 'slowpoke' name. But the view from Rattlesnake Point was absolutely breathtaking and everyone wanted to take some pictures. We initially took the craggy route that skirted the edge of the escarpment, but after a while, some of us wanted to hit more even ground and catch up some time, so we got back on the main trail just in time to navigate down some tricky rock descent. At the bottom of the ravine the dogs discovered a small stream and to their delight! lots of mud!
As they say, what goes down must come up and we took the steep climb up, but we managed to survive, everyone feeling hale and bit hungry - we decided to continue on to the Iroquois Village at Crawford lake so that we could spend a long lunch and get a chance to look at the village, rest our feet and spend some time in what sun we had left.
Some of us ate lunch and chatted in the conservation area, others went off to explore. When we met up again we attempted several group photos, so we'll see who was able to set up their camera correctly to capture the group shot - we had a set up of four cameras going!
After lunch we threaded our way along the boardwalk that goes around Crawford lake - it was REALLY busy! Dave marvelled that it must have taken a long time to build that board walk and I noted that it felt like a nice shock absorber for walking.
We set off again along the Bruce and took an alternate route through the ravine. Although we took the same route down into the ravine that we climbed out of - it seemed a lot steeper and more perilous going down. No handholds and the rocks were somewhat slippery. I graciously let everyone go ahead of me because I knew it would take a lot of time to reach bottom. And once again - what goes down must come up...this time it was an easier climb but it seemed like it took forever. I think some of us were getting pretty tired at this point. As we reached the last stretch home, Gary used his handy dandy GPS to lead us on a short cut to our cars. He also confirmed that we did 13.4 Km and we finished in a decent time for a slowpoke hike. Our mission was to make it all the way to Crawford Lake, and back with the guaranteed 90% return rate, and I can say we were more than successful. And we never had to find out whether we could substitute an extra dog for a lost person. :)
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.