Hamilton on the Niagra Escarpment

Hamilton has waterfalls? To my surprise the region is covered with them. Again I had to come to terms with my childhood impressions. They were wrong. They were shattered by bad information programmed into me by media, rumours and schooling. Heck, when I was growing up and until just now I always thought Hamilton was about factories and more factories.When in fact they have put some effort into reshaping the community with an ever improving recreation trail and park system.

Hamilton is on the cusp of the Niagara Escarpment. There is a lake level section of the community and then there is a cliff side section of the community. It is this massive ridge and cliff system of the Niagara Escarpment that is partly responsible for the high number of waterfalls. Now lets be clear here.. not all the waterfalls are National Geogrphic caliber. Some are disappointing, some are exciting.

Disappointed at Felkers Falls

After exploring the downtown core of the community I started planning out my route throughout Hamilton. My first waterfall was a dud in more ways than you can imagine. Felkers Falls is accessed from a loop trail. I, by accident, took a left instead of a right. So I was lucky enough to get to hike the whole loop trail before reaching the falls. It ends up, if I took a right at the trailhead I was only 20 metres from the falls, not 500 metres. No directional sign at the trailhead did not help any. Not a big deal it was a short miscalculation. More disappointing was a lookout with no view. Don’t you love those lookouts where you are staring straight into a bee hive of trees.

The only way I was going to see anything of Felkers Falls was to find a trail down to the base of the falls or scale the cliff down. I looked for my first option. No luck. I pondered the second option. And what goes down must come up. And down was never the issue, but how to get back up the cliff certainly was. So I moved on.

Borers Falls

Borers Falls was starting in the right direction. The falls were located in a park with a good selection of trails. Took me a while to figure out the trail map but eventually I figured out which trail I needed to take and when I should zig and zag. No more wrong turns. I reached the falls lookout in good time but was greeted with another lousy lookout with a limited view. I am not sure you could even call it a view. And from the shape of the barrier it was easy to see that not many people were pleased.

After some effort and two waterfalls later with disappointing results I changed the game plan. Tomorrow it is enough with the waterfalls I will start exploring other activity destinations. I ended up exploring places like Dundrum Park (a heritage site with a castle), Eramosa Park (Trail leading to potholes and caves), Hamilton Beach (massive long stretch of sand beach) and the waterfront (paved trail, beaches, parks, marinas, boat launch, playgrounds and more). The waterfront route is very well done and scenic. The beach is one of the longest city beaches I have visited.

Then it was back to the waterfalls. This time I was visited two waterfalls in one the better bike parks in the city – Forest Park. The first falls Albion Falls. From the parking lot the trail led me to, not one, but two lookouts with no view. But this time I was going to find an easy way down. Picking my route down was easy, crossing the river at the bottom proved to be harder. To cross I had to add a few boulders to the river to make my footbridge.

Once on the other side I followed a trail which led me to the base of Albion Falls. It was a great looking waterfall (Main Blog Picture). The cascading waterfall was wide and powerful. At the foot of the falls were layers of flat rock. Rock you could walk on with an inch of water on top. It was worth the soaker to get the picture. Once I had my fill I climbed up the cliff using a different route. It was steeper but quicker. Lets just say I slept well that night.