Before I begin describing the antics of this month’s hike, I want to provide some updates on the Limestone Ladies and their extra-curricular hiking escapades.
A hiker from our group traveled to Singapore where she naturally went hiking and met up with some Singapore sisters!

The Singapore equivalent of the Limestone Ladies on their way up a local mountainside! Looks like a very hot day.
Then we had a hiker who needed to do a make-up hike for a missed section. She misunderstood the concept and went on a make-out hike instead, sending this photo to prove her conquest of not only the trail, but also her hunky hiking buddy.
After we’ve all cooled down from that photo, we will continue with the regularly scheduled blog.
The ladies set out from Km 10 of the Dufferin Hi-Lands section. As you will recall, we left off here in January, on a particularly memorable day:
Fortunately, weather is never forever! Here we are on September 28, at the exact same place:
One thing that regular hikers take for granted on the BT is the presence of stiles. In fact we have become quite blase about them. Yawn… another quaint and rustic stile.. ho-hum. However, we had a new hiker with us who got very excited when she clambered over her very first stile:
I would never want it to be said that our Ladies are not fashionable. This hike we had a selection of couture hats on display, delivered directly from the salons of Milan and Paris.
Cedars are an iconic part of the Bruce Trail geography. On this hike, we traveled through several large and healthy cedar forests. The dense shade is cool and spicy, and the trunks almost always have interesting leans and curves.
In contrast to the monotone grays and browns of the cedar forest, the deciduous forest was a riot of brilliant colour.
While the tendency is to look down at the trail, don’t forget to look up!
We had lunch in shady nook beside a farmer’s field.
Here are some of the reasons we love autumn hiking: not too hot, not too cold, no bugs, spectacular colours, sweet-smelling fields, almost no mud. As you can see, there is not a lot to complain about. Which brings me to what was supposed to be the premise of this hike. This was the official Whining and Complaining hike. These ladies are so charming and optimistic all the time, it was felt that they must be repressing their true natures. So, special deal for one hike only, we were all given permission to whine, grouse, complain, fret, and criticize to our hearts’ content.
The only problem is… it didn’t happen.
We had the cheese to go with the whine….
Here’s what happened when the ladies were specifically and severely asked to be as bitchy as possible:
There are numerous theories for becoming a successful hiker. Some advocate sleeping in an altitude-simulating tent. Others prescribe a vegan diet and vigorous resistance-training. Others claim that growing a beard and wearing plaid takes care of it. Here is my favourite tip for becoming a successful hiker:
As we neared the end of our hike, we met two rare and interesting characters:
The first was an endangered Eastern Milksnake. Although small, this little fellow was quite feisty and we didn’t want to mess with him!
The other was the extremely rare and profoundly endangered three-legged hiker:
All wonderful days must come to an end. Here we are at 2nd Line, happy, mellow, and not bitchy at all!
A few of us went on a post-hike field trip to see Lilac Hill Garden, just down the road. It was lovely:
Thanks for a fantastic hike, ladies! See you in October.
Well I’d like to whine about the lack of whining on the hike. There was no mention that we would have to climb the escarpment (or ridges between creeks) 6 times. And only 6 climbs would have been ok, but we missed the turn off for the 2nd Line ECL Side Trail and descended the escarpment once again on the Oliver Creek Side Trail before realizing our mistake and having to climb back up for the 7th time.
Actually we had a lovely hike. The sun was shining, the breeze was cool and the fall colours were fabulous. We saw 10-15 meadow larks and 20-30 blue birds at about km 22 so we stopped there for lunch and watched them play as we looked over the valley with a stunning view.