The Passionate Hiker: A Record Year

Thurs. 31 December: A Record Year

Near Narrows Lock, south of Perth

Note: single-click on the first picture above to scroll through the photos separately.

It was a record year!

During 2015 I went on 153 separate outdoor trips. Statistics for the year were:

Dist. hiked: 796 km

Dist. biked: 658 km

Dist. XC ski: 21 km

Dist. snowshoe: 62 km

Total Dist.: 1,537 km

Total height gain: 18,800 ft. (est.)

Time on Trail: 362 hours

I surprised myself this year by easily beating my previous record for distance travelled. Perhaps it should not have been a surprise, since I now had “free reign” of my time. If the winter had arrived a little earlier, I might have set a new record for snow-shoe and ski, but I was pleased enough to have smashed the previous figures for hike and bike.

What a great year it had been in the outdoors. There were many highlights, a few of which are captured below.

Cataraqui Trail: This trestle bridge
is now an earth embankment

With an enthusiastic team of fellow hikers, I walked the full length of the 104 km Cataraqui Trail (the old rail line), from Smiths Falls to Strathcona, in eight legs, between April and November. During the year I made several other journeys along this trail, by bike or on foot. Total distance travelled on the Cataraqui Trail was 236 km.

A tricky stretch of the K&P

I biked the entire length of the old K&P railway line, between Kingston and Renfrew, in nine stages – and since this was a solo adventure, I did the journey there and back, a total of 345 km. It was not all plain sailing. At one point, north of Tichborne, I waded for over a kilometre through a murky swamp, the bike wheels under water.

Enjoying the Rideau Trail

There were fifty-two separate hikes along the Rideau Trail, forty of them for maintenance purposes. Every trip along the Rideau Trail reminded me how fortunate we are to have this delightful resource right on our doorstep.

Algonquin:
Rock Lake from Booths Rock

I made good use of Ontario Provincial Parks, particularly Murphys Point (eleven trips, at all times of the year), Frontenac (three trips), Charleston Lake, and three busy days in Algonquin, where I went on ten different adventures by bike and on foot, totalling 79 km.

Bruce Trail: Old Baldy lookout

In October with our hiking friends we stayed at a resort on Georgian Bay and explored parts of the 890km Bruce Trail, clocking up 37 km on four enchanting hikes in the Blue Mountains, clambering up escarpments and down through crevices in the cliffs.

Calabogie: skiers and hikers
(Gatineau Hills on far horizon)

Less than an hour’s drive north of Perth are the Calabogie ski hills, and these made for some good rugged adventures by foot or snowshoe on five separate occasions during the year. Who says Eastern Ontario doesn’t have any hills?

Tay River in Perth

There is plenty of good walking in and around the Town of Perth, and I enjoyed exploring the streets of the town, the wildlife reserve, and the Tay Valley, on fourteen occasions.

Striding out onto Lower Rideau Lake

In addition to all this, I visited many other places to walk or bike during 2015. Closer to home were trips to several wonderful Conservation Areas, including Mill Pond, Foley Mountain, Goodwood Marsh and Meisel Woods. Further from Perth I hiked in Gananoque and Ottawa, and biked the Long Sault Parkway along the St. Lawrence River. During the winter months I joined organized hikes on Otter Lake, and Lower Rideau Lake, striding far out onto the ice.

Montreal from Mont Royal

Finally, the year was capped by a walk up beautiful Mont Royal above the city of Montreal on Christmas Day - a repeat of a hike I did forty-six years ago on my first visit to that city as a young student.

At Wheelers sugar bush

Joining the Rideau Trail Association (RTA) has transformed my outdoor experience. In previous years, I would mostly travel alone, it being difficult to find fellow hikers. Now, thanks to the RTA, most of my hiking has been in the company of many kindred spirits, making the whole experience that much more enjoyable. We have had a lot of fun on the trails in 2015. Even trail maintenance can be enjoyable when you are part of an organized “maintenance day”, and the hiking trip to the Wheelers sugar bush proved to be an excellent reason for a gigantic plate of freshly cooked pancakes and maple syrup. And for the moonlight hike in November, an enthusiastic group of hikers was treated to a cloudless sky with a rising moon, Orion reflecting in the dark lake…..and hot chocolate!

After seven years of keeping statistics of all my outdoor adventures, I have decided not to continue doing so. This had been a record year, and therefore a good time to stop measuring every trip. It has been an amazing seven years, as the table below will show.

Never fear! The Passionate Hiker plans to continue to head outdoors for many more adventures, as long as he is able to put one foot in front of the other.

See you out on the trails.