Half Way There

07 Jan 2006: Rideau Trail kilometres 191.5-195.1
08 Jan 2006: Rideau Trail kilometres 32.0-41.7
Rideau Trail kilometre 8.5

While the cat's away...

This weekend, MY is away visiting Queens University (with the digital camera, thus no photographic documentation). I took advantage of the alone time. Saturday afternoon, I parked at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Smiths Falls and ran (aboard the snowshoes) down the highway to Poonamalie Road, to the end of that road and then back to the car. I then rushed back to town for the annual general meeting of the orienteering club.

Thanks to JR's Christmas gift, I'm learning a lot of Italian during the drives to the various trail heads.

My plan for Sunday morning was to drive the old Perth Road to the eastern fringes of Frontenac Provincial Park. However, in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday I found white-out conditions on the roads and chose a different destination with a safer driving route.

Getting to Sydenham, I was in the car a long while (2h35 drive) but I was much safer. Even on highway 416, the deep snow forced the cars to a single lane and speeds under 95kph. The weather plays a role in every segment I choose. Will the drive be safe? Will I encounter open water on the trail? Before each outing, I carefully study the maps published in The Rideau Trail Guidebook.

Sunday morning, I parked at the Sydenham IGA which is also the location of the crossing of the right-of-way for the former CNR Smiths Falls subdivision. Before 10h00 I was on Afton Road meeting 25-30 hikers (all older than me, I think) headed the opposite direction (towards Kingston). I enjoyed cruising along the path beaten down by all those hikers. At the end of Freeman Road, I passed parked cars belonging to those hikers. They must have started out before 09h00. Those parked cars will still there on my return journey and I never did see those hikers again in my 4h17 outing.

Five times in each direction, I crossed fences using stiles. Crossing stiles is a skill every snowshoer should learn. Fortunately, the "Bull in Pasture" warning sign did not apply this day. The bulls were in a neighbouring pasture.

Past the end of Freeman Road, the next quarter-mile "rugged" segment of the Rideau Trail was treacherous. The snow was not packed and the trail hugged the top of the steep escarpment at a bad angle. Even in dry, summer conditions, this section of trail would be dangerous. On the return trip, I followed the safer and faster parallel alternate trail guided by the blue trail flashes.

Eventually, I entered the Gould Lake Conservation Area. The Rideau Trail seems to form a maze amongst the many trails in the conservation area. It is difficult to sight the trail flashes.

Rather than use emergency rations, I turned back on the trail when lunch was running out: a granola bar, two PowerBars and two PowerGels. I budgeted for seven hours of daylight but I hadn't grabbed enough calories. In the conservation area, my point to turn back was at a 10m boulder located about 500m west of the service road crossing.

After meeting up with MY & company at Queens late Sunday afternoon, I got the digital camera and couldn't resist another outing before the sun set. However, this outing only involved about 20 metres of the Rideau Trail on Sydenham Road in the city of Kingston and was actually an exploration of a 1200m segment of the former right-of-way for the Kingston & Pembroke Railway (CPR Kingston subdivision). Rails first appeared on this trail in 1875 but were eventually abandoned in 1986.

The Rideau Trail flash on the wooden pole is well faded. Similarly, the paint on the tanks in the photographic background is also faded. The petroleum plant was once served by this railroad.



Thanks to the outings this weekend, my mission to snowshoe the length of the Rideau Trail is more than half (54%: 165.3/304.3) completed. At this rate, I'll still be hiking the Rideau Trail in snowshoes in January 2008!