Photo courtesy of The Heart of Ontario (theheartofontario.com)

I keep forgetting what the forest does to me until I'm standing in it. The cars passing, the construction vehicles beeping, the people talking, all of it fades out. What fades in is the trees wrestling in the wind, the water rushing down the creek, the birds. Smokey Hollow Falls was no different. You start at the waterfall and follow the bend, and the creek picks up into rapids as you come closer.

I brought my daughter. She's a toddler, and the last hike we did was Tiffany Falls, which she loved. This one had more ground to cover. Branches poking out, roots crossing the path, scattered steps, mud, rocks. Real terrain, not the flat, even, orderly city she knows.

And she went at all of it. She held my hand a lot more than last time, which is fine. It's actually kind of cool. She doesn't shy away from anything as long as I'm right beside her. Hold her hand and she'll come. She didn't refuse a single thing, and some of it was honestly a little dangerous. If you're bringing a toddler here, stay close. It's not like there are guardrails out here, just logs suggesting where to go. I kept picturing my wife in that moment, nerves completely fried, running on pure anxiety. For me it was the opposite. She's seeing stuff she doesn't see every day, building her motor skills one wobbly root at a time.

We didn't make it to the end. We hit a point where she was done walking and just wanted me to carry her. Going down to the creek was the fun part. Walking back up with her on my shoulders was not. She sang the whole way, banged on my head like a set of drums, and pulled my hair for percussion. By the time we got to the car my hair was everywhere, I looked crazy, and I felt disoriented.

Would still recommend it. Just stay close, because the ground is uneven and I imagine it's slick after rain. There are "stay on the path" signs everywhere, and for good reason. It's in Waterdown off Mill Street, and you don't pay for parking.

Neeks

Dads corner

Hike, There It Is!

That hike this week got me thinking. If the forest does that to me, every dad in this city should have an easy way to find his own version of it. So I built something. It's a map of every waterfall and hiking trail around Hamilton worth doing with your kid, all in one place.

Open it up and you get pins for all of them, gold for waterfalls, maroon for trails. Tap any one for the address, a details link, and directions straight from your phone. You can show just the waterfalls, just the trails, or everything, and jump to your part of town, from the Mountain to Dundas to Waterdown to Burlington.

They're tagged in the main Activity Finder too, so you can pull them up next to everything else in the city. Just tap the Waterfalls or Hiking Trails filter.

Pick one close to home, tap directions, and go. Stay close on the trail. And if your kid taps out halfway like mine did, that's what shoulders are for.

Neeks