Thanksgiving on the High Falls Loop
Details
After 10:30 AM October 2rd no one will be permitted to join, even if there are open spots.
Thanksgiving, the perfect time for a hike. The weather is cool, the bugs are gone, and the leaves are at their finest.
This Thanksgiving I decided to do the High Falls Loop in Queen Elizabeth Wildlands Park again.
This area of the park sees very few visitors but holds some delightful terrain and wildlife.
However...the trail can be hard if not impossible to find/follow at times, and the real path is basically a bushwhack.
REQUIREMENTS:
Physically this is a intermediate difficulty trip, but requires an advanced level of skills with high expectations of participants.
There are real navigational challenges so I am going to be upholding some very stringent standards for this trip
- Only people (and couples) who have led their own wilderness trips previously will be permitted.
- Everyone must have a navigational quality map in some form, paper (plus compass) or GPS (see notes below on this).
I will be checking these. This is for everyone's safety, I want to ensure that those who may become lost can independently travel and navigate.
COVID:
- I ask for those who are not vaccinated and/or not comfortable with the provincial recommendations around COVID to not join this event.
- I will not be checking vaccination status; please assume those who are joining this event will not be vaccinated and could be COVID positive.
- Trips are contingent on the COVID situation and are subject to change or cancellation.
- Please, no carpools with those outside of your household.
- No sharing food or drink.
- Please review this COVID survey the evening before the trip: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/self-assessment/ If the assessment does not give you the all clear, please let me know, and do not come.
ITINERARY:
Saturday
10:30 AM, we will meet at the parking lot near Victoria Falls.
https://goo.gl/maps/qGq3aKPT9VxPysKb7
We will hike on the Ganraska Trail network to
Black Fly River Junction -> Along the Graveyard section of the Ganaraska Trail -> Black Fly Junction -> Hiker's Graveyard -> to an area near the three way junction that used to lead to Sadowa
Sunday
We will continue around the High Falls loop returning to Hiker's Graveyard and continuing a little further to a lovely campsite about half way to Black Fly Junction.
Monday
We will have a somewhat shorter hike back to the cars at Victoria Falls hopefully enriched by the land and company. If we feel like it we can return along the Ragged Rapids Trail.
MAPS:
- You can find good digital maps of the entire route here (download links near the bottom of the page).
https://www.explorethebackcountry.com/qewmap - If you have a paper copy of the map above feel free to bring that.
- I use the digital maps, they work very well with the GPS built into most cell phones.
I use the app from this site, https://www.avenzamaps.com/index.html, and in the app they have a "Store" where you can download the "Queen Elizabeth Wildlands" map for free. - Finally the park is now providing a map which can be used the GPS enabled PDF reader (for example Avenza). https://www.ontarioparks.com/pdf/maps/queenelizabeth2wildlands/qe2-backcountry-hiking-canoe-routes.pdf
MONEY:
I will collect a $10 deposit per person which I will return to those who attend the trip or drop out more than a week in advance. I will also offer refunds to those who have concerns about their COVID status.
I have enjoyed doing this route several times and look forward to sharing the experience.