17th Hike - Boyne Valley Provincial Park

This one is a jewel! It is a non-operating park, with only hiking trails....but what a great hike indeed! We have done it several times before, when the kids were younger, but it had been a while!

2008 Rachael, Alyssa and Rebecca atop Murphy's Pinnacle.

This time, we came from Highway #89, not Prince of Wales Road as we used to. Of course, this made the hike around 5x longer than we were used to as well. 

The trail started off quiet and tranquil. With no leaves on the trees yet, we were able to see many things that normally we don't get to see (like nests in trees). 

As we followed the trail north towards the pinnacle, we encountered some ... ugh ... ice and snow still left!

Maybe by mid-summer it will all be gone?

Soon we came to the Boyne River. In this area, it was shallow and clear, and absolutely gorgeous!

These bridges were fantastic, and apparently added lovingly by volunteers.

From here, it was quite a hike uphill to get to Murphy's pinnacle.

We then headed east until we hit the Boyne Valley Side Trail.

This took us to the 1st Line, and eventually brought us back west to join back up to the Bruce Trail. If you look closely (very closely) in the next picture, you will see the deer we saw.

They are little blips a little to the left of centre (this is an iphone, after all).

At one point, our path was completely blocked by fallen trees. It was like walking through a maze :).

After completing the loop, we headed south back to Highway #89.