Another Caledon Hills Success

On a beautiful August day, 18 volunteers from the Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club gathered to complete another reroute north of the Escarpment Side Road between St. Andrews Road and Mountainview Road.

This is the second reroute in this area in two months and the story behind it is interesting.  At the June work party when building the reroute on Town of Caledon property, Carol Sheppard, our landowner relations chair, spoke to the neighbours to let them know what all these people were doing in the fields beside them!  Two of the neighbours greeted Carol’s announcement warmly and also granted us a handshake to allow the Trail on their land.

Now when heading east, the main Trail turns south and continues beside a field of sunflowers to then enter a beautiful rolling forested area that is a moraine left over from the retreat of the glaciers.  The land immediately to the north was a major spillway for meltwaters in post-glacial times.  (The “old” route continues east between fields for about 600m to Mountainview Road and is called the Mountainview Road Access Trail.)

But that is most significant is that the reroute allows us to put the main Trail back on Peter and Erica’s land (landowners who were featured in the spring Caledon Comment.)  Thus, from St. Andrews Road to Mountainview, the Trail is totally off road.

Veteran trail worker John Maxwell commented on the changing route and the trail alterations on Peter and Erica’s land: The first footpath was built in the 1980’s and blazed white when the Escarpment Side Road was main trail.  Then in the late 1980’s, the main Trail was moved to the rail line, and the blazes here changed to blue.  Then, several years ago,  the main Trail was moved back, so they became white. In June 2006, they reverted to blue, only to be changed back in August!  The route of the Trail is a changeable thing!  But we are making progress towards the desired or optimum route.

Special mention should be made of Carol Sheppard who lead the work party, Laurence Christie who did much of the organization and brought the materials to site, and Greg Huffman, a new Trail Captain who will complete the last touches of improvement.

The Caledon Hills volunteer list now totals 113 names, and approximately 50 of those have been active thus far this year on trail work.  But we can always use more, and there are work parties scheduled on both weekends and weekdays throughout the fall.  Plan to join us for one (or more) and help us achieve the quality of Trail we want.