The Falls and The Goblin Trail

Woke up to a gorgeous sunny morning. I had slept very well and I was happy to be in the great outdoors.  The campground  was remarkably quiet and peaceful.  The sun streaming through the trees was beautiful. 

I headed over to Jayson and Cindy's for a delicious breakfast. After breakfast we played a few board games and then went outside to play a game of Bocce Ball.

At about 4 o'clock Jayson and I and his two sons headed over to Chutes Park to hike the Twin Bridges Trail.  It's a good thing I had Jayson with me as a guide because I would have went down the long flight of stairs to the falls to begin the trail when the trail head was actually at the top of the hill just a little further down the road from my site. 

The path was wide and well groomed. It is an easy hike for almost anyone. The trail was lined with cedar trees and it smelled wonderful. 

Up in one of the trees was a bat box. Unfortunately the roof had come off of this one so there probably weren't any bats in it. 

Near the beginning of the trail was a sign warning us about the presence of poison ivy. I am not an expert on what poison ivy looks like but I think I spotted some. I always remember the verse "Leaves of three, let it be". But there are other plants that have three leaves so, it's not always easy to tell.

A lititle further down the trail was another sign asking you to stay on the trail. The reason for this is because at that point the trail runs along the edge of the group site.  

This is one place in the park that could use a bit of a change. It would be nice for both the campers and the hikers if they would plant a wall of trees along the border so that hikers didn't feel awkward and campers didn't feel intruded on and had more privacy.​ 

Oddly enough, just on the other side of the group site they had already begun to plant some new trees. All they would have to do would be to plant some more. And it would provide more shade to the group site if they did.

A little further past the group site is another wide open area. This section butts up against the road. This is the place where people park their vehicles and sneak onto the trails to avoid having to pay to use them.  

Once we got past those open areas, the trail finally turned into a more forested area and began to feel more lime a real hiking trail. This was where the beauty of the area began to come into view and where you got better views of the rapids.

​In some places benches were provided so that you can sit and relax to enjoy the view.

With two young boys along for the journey, there was plenty of exploring to do. We took some side trails and got closer to the edge of the rushing water to explore down there. We weren't the only ones.  There were two other groups of people on the side trails too, some with cameras in hand.

There were plenty of things besides the falls to take pictures of, like the yellow swamp buttercup flowers.

And these Bluebell flowers.

The water ran fast enough to leave a build up of white frothy foam along the waters edge in some places.

In one spot the misty spray rose up into the sunlight and we could just make out the dim colours of a rmini rainbow.

When you are exploring the waters edge you can sometimes come across some interesting pieces of driftwood. Jayson found one that looks like the head of a rhino or a triceratops dinosaur.

There were two wooden bridges that allowed us to cross over to the other side of the falls.

We were very surprised to find that nestled into the woods, just a short distance from the trail were a pair of Adirondack chairs and a little plastic side table. 

And what do you do when you find a pair of Adirondack chairs in the woods?  Why, you sit in them of course!

As we sat relaxing and enjoying the scenic view of the falls, a dragonfly was doing the same on a near by branch. 

Adirondack chairs were not the only surprising thing we found. Hayden found a shovel, that was as big as he was, standing in the ground next to the trail. Apparently some of the park staff had been doing some maintenance work on the trail and had accidentally left it behind. We took it with us when we left the trail and returned it to a member of the staff before we left the park.  

The trail eventually led us to a wide, open expanse of flat rock. 

We all went in different directions to explore and discover what hidden treasures might lie among the rocks here.

Dreyden found a little nook carved into the stone to explore.

Hayden found a June Bug.

I called the boys over to see the mosquito larvae that I found swimming and squirming around in a puddle. 

And Jayson pointed out a spot where the water came and went like the tides and where the stone was so weathered by the movement of the water that it looked like it was plastic. 

In the distance we spotted our final destination. It was a look out nestled into the tree line. 

We passed a map of the trail that was on a post. It showed that the look out that we were headed to was almost  directly across the river from where our hike began. 

We were pleasantly surprised to find a picnic table on the side of the trail. This meant that we could come and have a picnic lunch here sometime. I thought to myself that it was nice that the park staffput the picnic table there because it couldn't have been easy to get it to where it was. 

We finally reached our destination. We stopped for a break at the look out to see what we could see. 

The falls looked lovely from here. 

There were Pale Corydalis flowers growing on the rocks. 

At this point it was about 6 p.m. It had taken us almost 2 hours to get here. That was because we had taken so many side trails and had stopped to explore so often. The troubling part was that we were supposed to have been back at the house for supper at 6. Jayson made a quick call to his wife to let her know that we would be late. (Luckily there was cell service where we were). And so we headed back the way we had come. 

Since we were in a hurry we didn't take any side trails and we kept to the trail. Well, except at one place. When we got to the Goblin Trail we couldn't resist going down it. The Goblin Trail is our name we gave to a section of the trail that splits off into a dark, wooded section. It looks like something the goblins would travel on and seems mysterious and magical. 

The Goblin trail follows the parallel to the main trail, only at a much lower level. If you look way up you can see the main trail above your head. You can also see the bottoms of the trees growing above your head too. 

We followed the Goblin Trail until it eventually joined back up with the main trail. 

We finally made it to the end and headed back to the house. We were amazed to find out that what took us 2 hours to go into the trail, took us only 40 minutes to come back. 

   Back at the house we had a wonderful dinner and after that we played some board games. I ended up having a bit of a headache so I decided to call it an early night and went back to camp before dark (around 9:30 pm). 
   
   I stopped off at the comfort station to check it out before going back to my site.  

The path to the comfort station was lined with solar powered lights. 

I took an Advil for my head ache and then went for a walk in the dark to the falls. I didn't turn on my flash light (except on the stairs so I wouldn't fall down them). I sat in the dark and listened to water and the wind. It was so peaceful.

On the way back, some campers were setting off some fire works in celebration of the Canada Day weekend. I couldn't see them very well because of the trees though. 

Back at my site I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep yet, so I took my folding chaiir and set it up inside my tent in order to avoid the mosquitoes. As I sat and read a book, I could hear a loon calling over top of the sound of the rushing falls. It is a beautiful night and I really like it here in this park.