The Passionate Hiker: The Blue Connector

5 March: The Blue Connector

Upside down blue sign indicates start of a blue side trail

Note: click on pictures for full size view.

We could have skated through long sections of today’s seventeen kilometre frozen landscape.

The reader will recall that this author started a project last year to travel all the Rideau Trail side trails (marked by a blue arrow), and then to share my experience with other hikers.

Christ Church in Burritts Rapids

Today, two of us walked all the way from the old church at Burritts Rapids to the western end of the “Blue Connector” side trail, and in so doing, claiming not only the Blue Connector, but also the hunting season diversion route north from Burritts Rapids to Paden Road. To complete this long trek required some logistical planning, to pick the best places to start and finish. For this is a surprisingly remote trail, needing a plan for access from the nearest road. The plan worked perfectly.

After a fast 2.8 km walk up the road from Burritts Rapids, we followed the Rideau Trail northwards from Paden Road into the Marlborough Forest. A short way into the forest, we noticed some unexpected blue arrows heading off to the left. These were, I suppose, intended to be a bypass for a wet trail, but the arrows led through thick bush, and would be invisible in summer. After about 100 metres we gladly returned to the main path. This was one blue trail we shall not recommend to anyone.

At a wide clearing in the woods, we turned west onto the “Blue Connector” trail, which followed a straight forest road, marked grandly on the map as “Heaphy Road”. It was a fascinating stroll beside large frozen swamps and along tree-lined avenues. We crossed Brassils Creek on a bridge, a few kilometres upstream from the magical Stoney Steps.

One large sign made up of four smaller ones!

Into the forest

Heaphy Road: the "Blue Connector"

Brassils Creek

Snow art - several degrees below freezing today

The road was a sea of ice, and a recent sprinkling of snow allowed us to observe the tracks of countless critters which had been running across the trail over the past day. Later we saw five white-tailed deer leaping across the path, but all the tiny creatures stayed well hidden.

Critter City

Crossing Dwyer Hill Road

Crossing the one main road (Dwyer Hill Road) – a lonely highway through the forest – we plunged back into the trees. Our direction was generally southwest, with many turns along the way. In the middle of nowhere, it seemed, we came upon an old log farmhouse with a flag flying from a mast. Although nobody appeared to be at home, there were tire tracks in the snow – and an access “road” which would have needed a four-wheel-drive vehicle. This remote home seemed to be very old, and one might imagine an early settler greeting us from their front door.

An icy avenue

The old farmstead

Our trail now plunged into the forest on a narrow, twisting trail (thank heavens for the blue arrows!), finally emerging onto Gilroy Road, a back-country lane marking the boundary of Ottawa region and our own Lanark County.

A narrow, twisting section - thank heavens the signs were good

An alert white tailed deer ahead

The final stretch of the Blue Connector trail led straight as an arrow along a tree-lined lane, which in summer would be a shady avenue. Today it was a skating rink, and we were grateful once again to the inventor of the MICROspikes (and other similar devices), as we strolled effortlessly down the ice.

Back onto the main Rideau Trail
for the final section of our 17.1 km journey

One final stretch of an enchanted forest pathway and we had arrived at our car, positioned at the north end of Old Quarry Road. Here the Rideau Trail turns south to Merrickville.

In an early Rideau Trail Association newsletter from 1974 (#14), there is a fascinating article written by Margaret Moxley called “Through the Long Bush”. It tells the story of the early settlers to this area, and the first road that was built to allow their travel further inland to Perth and beyond. This was known as “The Long Bush”, and we were following this old route for a while today. The silence of the frozen countryside, the old farm fences beside our trail, and that log home in the wilderness made us appreciate what those settlers faced – and how much they achieved – just to survive.