T.S. Giilck
Meaford is made for hiking, particularly the greater Woodford area.
One of my personal favourites is the Crevice Springs trail, a section of the well-known Bruce Trail, located right in the heart of Woodford.
Oddly enough, although it’s one of my favourites, it had been a few years since I travelled its modest 1.4 kilometre length until a recent visit.
One of the attractions of the trail is that even in this latest heat wave, the crevices in the heart of the escarpment outcropping still offer some hints of welcome coolness.
One of my favourite things about this trail is its bird life. It’s one of the most consistent spots I know of to find black-throated blue warblers, a favourite of mine, and a few graciously turned up even a bit late in the season.
If you visit in the spring, you’d be sure to regularly hear their call, which some people loosely translate as a weezy drawn-out “so-lazy”.
Ron Savage, the trail director for the Sydenham Bruce Trail Club, has a fondness for the trail as well. He was one of the people who helped pick a route through it eight years ago.
“The property consists of a 47-acre purchase by the Bruce Trail Conservancy in 2008,” he explained. “The property has 500 meters of Bruce Trail and 900 meters of side trail called Crevice Springs. If you combine the two trails you will create a 1.4 km loop.”
Savage described the trail quite appealingly.
“If you hike the loop taking in first the Bruce Trail portion you will cross a bridge over a crevice – look to your right and you will see the first of many caves and crevices that hide in the escarpment in this area.”
Savage said that according to local historians Woodford was a prospering “moonshine” town back in the prohibition days. There were three hotels in the village and the local entrepreneurs would hide their cases of illegal whiskey in the caves and crevices surrounding this area.
Walking through the trail, you could readily believe it. The area has so many potential hiding spots it would be ideal for concealed treasures of many types.
“As you return on the Crevice Springs side trail you will pass many of the seven springs that flow out of the talus slope on your way to the north end of this side trail,” Savage said. “In fact, several homes in the Woodford area draw their water from these springs through an easement on our deed for this property. As you near the end of the side trail it climbs back up the talus slope and gains the summit of the escarpment.”
Savage tells a colourful little tale of how the route of the side trail was established.
“As we were constructing the side trail we looked for hours for a route back up the escarpment. It was only at the extreme north end of the property we found what we were looking for.”
“A couple of days after our discovery I was talking to an elderly Woodford neighbour who has lived beside our new property for many years,” Savage added wryly. “I told him how excited we were of our new purchase and all of its features including the numerous springs. He knew about the springs; in fact some area residents, including him, have been getting water from those springs for 75 years or longer.”
“I told him of our long arduous search for a route to take the trail back up the escarpment. How we had spent hours looking and how only by luck we found a route that probably no one else had found before and again how excited we were. He smiled and said, “You must have found the ‘hole in the wall’ – that’s how I have been getting on top of the cliff for years and years”.
Savage said, “Next time we go exploring a new property to scout a trail route I think I’ll ask an elderly neighbour to come along and show us the way.”
For a map of the trail location click here.
