Hiking in December - Wonderland

Columbia Clothing has a great tag line:  Get Out... and Stay Out.

Which goes to show two things:
a) the power of advertising.  That this line sticks in memory for years and years is powerful stuff.
b) that with the right clothing, there is no place better to be than OUT.

Well dressed for the climate, and ready to enjoy the Great Outdoors, tThe Baysville Hiking Club dropped over to Bondi Village Tuesday and spent several hours happily rambling our trails.

We have plenty of trails to ramble.  Almost 20 km in total.  15 of those are groomed and track set for winter cross country skiing.  About 5 of them are not really suitable for hiking at this time of year, due to their location nestled adjacent to or within wetlands.  That still leaves plenty of scope. 

Not to mention plenty of great landscape views! 

With the leaves down, you can see far into the forest, right to the rocky 'bones of the land' and that amazing Muskoka Granite. It's beautiful stuff, but small wonder it defeated those early pioneers who thought they could turn it into farmland.

Down by Damalot, where the beavers live, the wetlands fill in with colour of their own -- after the leaves are gone and before winter wraps it all up in White.  The bittersweet's bright reds and the unfurling cat-tails make interesting camera studies.   The ponds themselves are filling in with shelly ice -- that too makes for interesting photos and plays of light and shadow.

Sometimes the brightest colours out there are the clothes of the hikers themselves -- and that too makes for lovely photos.  Walking through the sugarbush, the woods are so wide open you can almost see to the far horizons!  We love our trees and forests, different in every season. 

Still, I am reminded of the Saskatchewan farmer who retired into the mountains of B.C.  Asked how he liked it, he shrugged.  "It's nice enough," he avowed, "but the mountains sure do block the view."

Much the same can be said for a summer woodland.  Come this time of year, the view sort of 'opens up.'

Many thanks to Gloria Woodside for sending me these beautiful photos of the Baysville Hiking Club's hike with us!