C2 - The Oakville Beaver, W ednesday March 5, 2003 Hike planned on GO Train (Continued from page C1) "We have stood in awe at the foot of teeming waterfalls, learned the names of dozens of wildflowers and herbs, pon dered the age of giant oaks and gasped at ancient marvels such as Metcalfe Rock, and a deep limestone gorge." wrote Diane Thompson. Hikers traded cameras along the route, taking pictures of each other using the other's equipment. Tom Allen of Oakville, who hadn't picked up a camera in years, shot 25 rolls of film. He took considerable friendly teasing along the hike for his frequent stops to document the trek into five photo albums. Some hikers kept diaries. Tom creat ed a computer database of the adventure. He also took charge of car pooling, mak ing sure there were enough seats for everybody - the group plus an assort ment of guest hikers - at the end of a long day's trekking. The hike took two years to complete, and was done in quarters, in the spring and fall - to avoid the extreme heat of the summer and the bitter cold of winter. They hit the trail in Queenston on April 7, 2001 and finished last Nov. 3 in Tobermory. "Mission accomplished," wrote lead ers Phill and Anne Armstrong of Oakville in a letter published in the Halton Outdoor Club Newsletter. "It was an emotional moment for all of us. We have become very close over the course of this `odyssey.' It is some thing we shall never forget." The whole adventure began on the GO Train. Phill and Tom were not only seat mates on the train to Pickering they both worked at the same place. Phill has since retired. The two men waxed poetic about hiking the Bruce Trail. Tom had already started on the trail, having vowed to make hiking the Bruce Trail his family's Millennium project. He was joined by his sister Marlene and her hus band Paul Bird on this idyllic adventure. 'Tom mentioned his hike to me and I was very interested," said Phill. He men tioned the idea to his wife Anne, and it wasn't long before the Oakville couple found themselves organizing `The Bruce Trail in Quarters.' "Anne wanted to hike the Bruce Trail in shorter treks, not at the usual pace of 20 to 30 kilometres a day. We wanted to hike it at a more leisurely pace and see something." "We ended up doing a lot of the plan ning on the GO Train," said Tom. The result was 55 scheduled hikes over an 18-month period. Only one and a half hikes had to be Courtesy of Tom Allen · Special to the Beaver Tom Allen o f O akville clim bs one o f the m any lad d ers up and dow n cliffs along the B ruce T rail. T he hikers also had to squeeze th e ir way through the Singham pton Caves. canceled, said Al Hutchison of Burlington. "The half-hike was can celled because of a huge thunderstorm on the way from the Chedoke Golf Club to Dundas. "Right on the spot, we made a deci sion to pass the hat around to collect money so two guys could get a taxi to take us to our cars waiting for us at the end of the planned hike, a hike we made up the following week. "The only full hike to be cancelled was one in Duntroon on April 28 when it snowed and was -2 degrees with freez ing rain. Phill said it was hypothermia weather." Overall, said Al, the group encoun tered good weather. Anne, a wildflower enthusiast, filled a large photo album with her wildflower pictures. Tom was similarly smitten by ferns. Interest in the hike grew mostly by word-of-mouth and through the Halton Outdoor Club's newsletter. Almost half o f the hikers - eight - came from Oakville. The Armstrongs, who lived in Pickering before moving to Oakville, maintained their ties and friendships with the Durham Outdoors Club, a con nection that brought six keen hikers to the trip. "Most of them haven't been north of Toronto, so this was a whole new world opening up to them," said Al. For many, it's their first end-to-end hike. For all of the participants to complete this milestone, 130 individual hikes were logged by Tom. "Once we made it threequarters of the way, none of us were going to quit," he said. "We didn't know each other well at the beginning, but that changed once we began to stay overnight once we got north of Orangeville," continued Phill. "We stayed in places where we could stay as a group. We had potluck suppers, barbecues, at times went out for dinner." They discovered some fine small dining establishments in out-of-the way places along the trail, including the Mono Cliffs Inn and a place called Rocky Raccoons. Hikers encountered a bad tempered snapping turtle, hiked through meadows of wildflowers and past some unusual livestock - llamas and elk. plus an array of cattle, horses and sheep, and marveled at seeing an early moniing meteor show er near Mansfield. The only potentially dangerous inci dent was Phill being `attacked' by a pic nic table. Sitting down for lunch, he found himself under the table, with his fellow hikers taking pictures of him with the table straddling his chest before any one asked if he was all right. Amazingly, he was not seriously hurt. "I was rudely attacked by a man eat ing picnic table," he said. "We saw bear scat but there was more danger from the picnic tables than the bears." Al and Barb Hutchison of Burlington celebrated their 40th wedding anniver sary trekking from Inglis Falls past Owen Sound to Jones Falls last June 23. "I wasn't sure I could hike 15 kilo metres a day when I first started out," said Barb, "but 1 started to really enjoy it once we got going. "The top end (towards Tobermory ) was really difficult, and I'm pleased to have done it. but 1 don't want to do it again." Husband Al is considering join ing a small midweek hiking group plan ning to hike the Bruce Trail from north to south. Both are planning to hike the 200-kilometre Oak Ridges Trail from Palgrave to Rice Lake, starting in April with many of the same group, including the Armstrongs as leaders. "When we set off in the spring of 2001 we saw the best of all the waterfalls along the way, thanks to a wet spring," continued Armstrong, "Tew's, Webster's and Ball's Falls were all in full spike. The scenery was amazing - we have just beautiful scenery with 30 minutes of Oakville. "I really enjoyed seeing the spring flowers," said Barb. "We saw some awe some forest floors completely covered in trilliums," added Al. The lockouts at Lion's Head over looking Georgian Bay were "just awe some. but the trail was more challenging under foot, but very pretty," said Barb. "On our last weekend of hiking to Tobermory, we had snow, blue sky and a carpet of autumn leaves - yellow, white and blue," said Phill. "You don't see that very often. It was just a stunning sight." Anne felt a smaller group hike of the Bruce Trail in shorter distances made the adventure attractive to the participants. "We started off with some of the people having only a slight interest in hiking who became lean mean hiking machines." Because of the smaller number of people - the Armstrongs wanted to have no more than 20 - "we developed a good rapport within the group," said Tom Allen. "We were basically strangers when we started and we got to know each other very well," said Al Hutchinson. "People helped each other. When we ran out of water, others shared theirs with us. We looked forward to getting together every weekend." Concluded writer and hiker Diane Thompson. 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