Once we had our fill of the beautiful views at The Gallery, we continued on along the crest path. Soon we re-entered forest and began descending again, this time into the next draw along the Escarpment. I believe this draw is called Hidden Valley, and once down into the bottom of it, we would begin our descent back to the Escarpment's base and the completion of our exploratory loop.
The trail continued to be obvious, easily followable (although a little rough in spots here), right down to the creek in the draw's lowest point. The most prominent path (there's a faint junction) turned right here, following the creekbed until we emerged onto the lower slopes (still forested) of the escarpment. The path became less and less of a herdpath and more and more of an old wide, rough trail, with boulders and rocks and such, as we descended. We observed several other side paths feeding into this increasingly arterial route. It appears to me as if this trail might either have been a roadway or a logging road way back when, or perhaps was an official trail at one point (that has since been decomissioned). It was a bit less fun to clamber down this rougher trail, but it served well as a clear access back to where we needed to go.
One of Several Descent Junctions
Immediately upon reaching the Escarpment base and the beginning of the valley floor, the roughness disappeared and the trail became ruler flat. We walked along on the level for a few minutes and then emerged through a tunnel of vegetation at the edge of the farmer's field across which we had walked three hours before. This marked the completion of our loop, and the completion of the day's explorations. From here it was a simple walk back across the grass to Chemin Cregheur and the cars.
In summary, this went better than I'd expected. The herd paths that we had heard rumors about were indeed in place, and in fact are quite detectable and followable, if you have an eye for such things. There's little to no bushwhacking required if you stick to these paths and don't get off course. And we discovered that there are very nice sections of the Eardley Escarpment that these paths traverse, and that these bits are open, meadowy, and view-filled. And quiet.
Interactive trackmap with photo points - South Window and Gallery Loop - click map to view
Eardley Escarpment - South Window and The Gallery - Hike Data
Start Time:
1:38p.m.
End Time:
5:25p.m.
Duration:
3h46m
Distance:
6.57 km
(4.08 mi)
Average Speed:
1.7 km/hr
(1.1 mph)
Start Elevation:
303ft
(92m)
*
Max Elevation:
1192ft
(363m)
*
Min Elevation:
303ft
(92m)
*
End Elevation:
342ft
(104m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
962ft
(293m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
931ft
(284m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
