Old Baldy and the East Side of Beaver Valley

Date hiked: November 2019
Area: Old Baldy, Beaver Valley, Grey Highlands
Bruce Trail distance: 18.3 km (3 day total)
Difficulty: Hard
Terrain: Very hilly, lots of rocks and roots, narrow paths along the Escarpment
Parking: We mostly parked on the side of the road. Old Baldy Conservation had a parking lot that we used as well.

We had another successful trip up to the Grey Highlands. Again, these trails were challenging, and this time Mother Nature decided to grace us with 3 snowy hikes. Our B&B host was very kind to drop us off again, making our hikes one-way so that we could cover more distance.

We sandwiched a long hike in between 2 shorter ones during our 3-day trip. It’s funny how 5-6 km is now considered “short”. On the day of arrival, we explored Old Baldy Conservation Area. Actually, the trail has since changed from my 27th edition map, so instead of hiking north to Sideroad 7B, the trail turns west towards Beaver Valley Rd. “Official numbers” I will be going by my physical map, but in reality, we hiked the actual current trail. I figured it will be give or take at the end as the trails will always be changing.

It was a snowy hike, but better than rain! Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold. The first day, we hiked 5.3 km of the Bruce Trail.

The next day was our long hike. We start from Lake Eugenia Conservation Area and made our way north. We had fun shaking the trees and running ahead and laughing to see who got snowed on. Of course, one sister provoked another and then someone started crying so we had to stop the game. We hiked through forested areas, and then down the valley along the water pipes. The view was very very cool. Total hike that day on my GPS was 9.1 km, but on paper, it was 8.5 km.

The last day, we went back to the tip of Old Baldy and went north-east called McClusky’s Rock. We saw some turkey crossings. This hike had a lot of steep climbs down and steep climbs up, complicating the fact the we were the first to hike after a snow fall, so it was hard to see where to go at times. Total hike that day was 4.5 km, and also was our last hike of 2019!