I’ve mentioned before that the Bruce Trail is in constant flux. With some recent long additions (Beaver Valley and Bayview Escarpment extensions), the Bruce Trail has grown quite a bit lately. I figured it must be up over 900 km by now. But not quite, according to the Bruce Trail Conservancy, whose administrator just informed me that the total length is now 885 km.
The 25th edition of the Bruce Trail Reference Guide, released last August after I started the run, includes most of these changes. Trail changes since August are posted online here. According to the Conservancy:
“The trail changes listed on the website are for the 25th edition (things are always changing when landowners change their mind about letting us use their land or trails need redirecting for safety reasons). The new edition came out in August so any changes after about August 1st will apply to the new edition.”
It pays to keep on top of such things. Last summer Tory and I were on the new Beaver
Valley section when we ran into two tired, disoriented hikers who were many hours along a trail that didn’t appear on their map. They were just coming to realize that this wasn’t the convenient detour back to the trailhead that they’d imagined it to be. We helped direct them to nearest road so they could hitchhike back to their car. I had some equally bewildering moments of my own at the start of the trail before I figured out to update my maps before the start of every run.
According to the updated trail length, I have 284.5 km to go – just a tad further than I calculated after my last run.
