Fall Bruce Trail - Halton Hills 4th Line to 6th Line - "Day of the Fungi"

Nicky and I had big plans for hiking the Bruce this year. We booked dates together from spring to fall and then one after another situations or weather cancelled all but one. This weekend is our last scheduled hike for 2018 and luckily our lives and the weather co-operated.
I dropped the trailer at Aimee and Greg's and Greg helped me winterize it ready to leave for New Orleans next week. (Winterized because we can probably expect some below zero weather before we get into the warmth of the southern states). Then I drove up to Guelph and stayed at Nic's.
We had a slow start on Saturday but dropped one car on 6th line east of Acton and drove the other to 4th line, to start.

Raccoons had been into the corn, stripping some of it on the stalks and leaving other eaten cobs on the trail.

Grey, about 5 or 6 degrees, and very few leaves left on the trees.

Our first fungus sighting. The recent wet weather has certainly made for some healthy growth on decaying trees.

Periodically the sun would try and break through.

One of the nice things about today's hike was the variety of  different geography.

A rugged crevice ridden section

followed by "the hole in the wall" ladder down into a crevice

and through a rock tunnel to the trail below.

The exposed roots where very "Arundel" from LotRs.

There was lots of , what Nicky described as, "happy moss" ( lush and green from the rainy week)

We checked the trail map and found we were at about the half way point so had a snack of trail mix and dried mangos

next to an old mill race.

Crossing the bridge (photo by Nicky)

over the rushing water.

Past Limestone Kilns and and remains of other old buildings we had been walking in Limehouse Conservation Area.

Delicate colourful plants in a rock crevice.

Someone had been thoughtful enough to put out a hydration station for bees and butterflies. There was no need for us to top it up, it was full to overflowing.

While walking on a section of the trail on a road (our least favorite parts are on the roads) it started to rain and then very briefly hail. Nicola said that it was about this time last year that we were hiking on the Bruce up near Collingwood and it hailed.

As we were getting into a marshy area we were seeing more and more fungi

Some on live trees

some on fallen

and decaying trees and

some growing up from the moss

or through the dead leaves.

We had to walk very slowly and carefully for about the last km as it was on very slippery wooden boardwalks over marshy ground. In all we hiked 9 kilometers in about 3 hours.