Thursday, July 3, 2008

Usige Ban falls

July 1, 2008

Very warm 26 degrees and humid

Canada Day Hike with the family.

We decided to do a hike for Canada Day this year. So we search around for different hikes and found this little gem. The location is about an hours drive from Sydney and the hike is fairly easy for the kids.

Joining me on this hike were Cecelia (Da Wife), Nathan (2nd oldest) and Danielle (My youngest). The hike took about 2 and 1/2 hours.

This hike begins in a NS Picnic Park the trial is well defined and nicely looked after. There is a water fall at the end of the trail and also two good size brooks. There is also a section of the forest that is over 200 years old and you can see some good size hardwood trees.

Below is several pics of the trip and I will take some time later to clean up this post.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

North River Falls


June 29, 2008

Overcast, cool, mist and drizzle all day. To the right is a nice pic of the falls from the lookoff.

I wanted to do this hike since I first heard about the falls several years ago. So I decided to do it this week. On this hike I was joined by my son Tony and my friend Steve MacNeil.

We left at 6:00am for the hike, the drive took about 1 hour.

The hike is 18 kms round trip the first part of the trip consists of a short uphill climb to an old farm road then follow the farm path a couple of kms to get to the first good stop at a place called salmon pond. This stop provides a nice view of the river and we ran into two people fly fishing this location on the river.

We continued our journey and followed the narrowing trail up the river. We came to a sign indicating old growth forest. This part of the walk was very nice with some large older trees and plenty of sounds from the overhead birds. After a bit of walking the trail becomes a little more difficult and starts going up and down the side of the river embankments.

After approximately 3 hours we got to the falls and they were magnificent. Truly well worth the long hike. They are as stated the the hiking guide you can pick up at the start of the trail at least 100 feet tall and fall into a very large pool off water that would be large enough to swim in if the water was warmer. We explored around the edge of the falls and took a few pics of the falls from here.





To the left is a pic of Tony and I by the falls. To the right is a pic of Steve by the falls.
Below is a short video of the falls. You get a good apprication of the falls from the video.

We continued our hike up the last part of the trail which is a steep incline up the side of the hill for approx 1km to the look off. This part of the hike is very challenging and by the time we got to the top my leg with a strained ligament had enough and gave out on me. But the view at the top was beautiful. We rested for awhile here and had some lunch and took some more pics. Then we started back.

The trip down the hill was very difficult for me with my sore leg but we took our time and the slower hike back down the river was nice and I took my time to view the surrounding woods and views of the river all the way down.

Once back at the beginning we took the shorter hike to the small falls which I would estimate to be about 1 km each way, downhill on the way there and uphill on the way back. The small falls were very nice and we took a few more pics.

This hike was very enjoyable and I plan on doing it again in the early spring of next year to see how much different the falls look with the spring run off.
This is just a quick post and I will edit it later and add a link to more pics of the hike.