Iroquoia #5 - 16 January 2025, Group #2, Sherman Falls to Sydenham Lookout

 

Iroquoia #5 - 16 January 2025, Group #2, Sherman Falls to Sydenham Lookout

So many of us signed up for this hike that Annette, this week's coordinator, split us into two groups of twelve, starting at opposite ends of this lovely hike.  Of course, Annette, leading her group and exercising executive privilege, started at the Sydenham Lookout and descended its monster hill to Dundas, leaving twelve of us to stagger up that hill at the end of the hike.  Hard words were heard.

Milling about at Arbatan Road before the official start.

Here we go, from left to right, Andrew (photographer), Faryde, Domenic, Doug (Group 2 coordinator, photographer), Ivan (photographer), Nancy (photographer), Brian, Andrea, Rita, Frank, David, and Grace.

My ungainly crouch was so that Frank could get something I wanted from my backpack.  I can't remember what.

 

Frank had just told me that he had seen his first Pileated Woodpecker a week before when this specimen arrived with a loud cackle.  None of us had ever seen one on a hike before!  A few minutes earlier, a deer had crossed our path.  A hike packed with incident.

The Hermitage, its surviving structure stabilized and made safe for hikers by the Hamilton Conservation Authority

Another plaque, attesting to the importance of this beautiful tract of forest! 

We arrive at the Trail Centre where several hikers line up (for hours!) to use the only toilet officially open, studiously ignoring Brian who insists (and he is right) that the others, officially closed, are in perfect working order.  The average hiker is law-abiding.

Off we go again ...

... to meet up with Group 1 just finishing their elevenses.  The last photo in this group shows David, ready to get going and standing like a colossus astride the trail; the rest of us scampering to get ready.

A very long train passes as we approach Dundas.  Huge noise.

In Dundas

Almost at the Lookout and our cars, all twelve of us have conquered the Sydenham Hill and won through, an unnamed but cherished one of us overcoming misadventures.  What happens in the group stays in the group!

THE END