Speyside, Mon 9 Feb 2026 8:45am

Leader Hattie Cui

7 hikers joined this hike. MoonHo on his first Pathfinders hike whom we are confident will join again on future hikes.

-19 Celsius shortly after dawn was no match for this crew of well prepared hikers. There was a promise of partly cloudy condtions which came true. Here the crew is happy to take a break, by then the ambient had risen to -11 Celsius however by then walking on loose snow footing had warmed us. As you can see everyone was in good spirits. The woods at Speyside present a pretty backdrop.

The picture below shows the work of an ambitious bird or animal to remove wood strips from a crack in the bark of this very tall evergreen tree. What a remarkable effort to uncover some insects.

This photo shows a hiker meandering a side trail off the main Bruce Trail. You can just imagine the effort to avoid that one leg slips and disappears into the adjacent loose snow. There is some hint of warmer weather ahead so stay tuned on how the trail conditions change through Spring.