Bill Smith's Photography

 Why haven't I been here before? I have driven past Scotsdale Farm for years, no, decades on the way to skiing or hikes and elsewhere. This hidden gem is part of the Bruce Trail network but is not a conservation area per se like Silver Creek or Limehouse which I have been hiking a lot this past year. As per th name this use to be a 531 scre working farm that was gifted by the owners that was gifted to the Ontario Heritage Trust in 1982. The Bennett side Trail named after the farm owners hooks into the Bruce Trail, What's great about Scotsdale Farm is you can hike on the property and it's a pretty gentle 6.5 km, or you can scale up by taking another side trail that crosses 8th Line that will eventually deposit you into Silver Creek Conservation Area and you can do a 10.5 km loop with more challenging terrain into the mix.  A big surprise, there was a roll of Rollei RPX 400 in my black Nikon FM, I switched over to a bulk roll of Ultrafine Extreme 400 back in the spring, the c...

 I"m sticking to my midweek hikes and a few weeks ago I was out on the trail with my friend Rebecca at a mutually favourite spot, Credit River Conservation Authority's Silver Creek Conservation Area. It is completely dead during the week. The fall colours were just getting started when we went out, and this time did the Esker Loop counter clockwise, more on that next post.  The Nikon F100 just plain rocks in this situation.  Camera: Nikon F100, AF-D 28-105 F3.5-4.5 macro zoom lens.  Film: Kodak Portra 400 

So you've seen the cliffs at Mono Cliffs what now? Well there's lot to experience, there's McCarsten's Lake, left over glacier and rain water. and if you're there at the right time it's a special level of beautiful. The beauty of this provincial park, you can scale the hike as short or long as you want. Due to time cosntraints I haven't done super long hikes this year but the loop around McCarsten's Lake is a nice walk in the woods.  Just go during the week in the peak fall colours season because it will be insanely busy, thank you BlogTO.  Camera: Nikon FE, Nikkor Ai lenses.  Film: Fomapan 400, ID-11 1+1. 

 Boyne Valley is considered "moderate" in terms of Bruce Trail hikes, depending on your level of physical conidtioning it could a be a serious 8.5 km long trek with a lot of up and down through some of the most beautiful landscape in Southern Ontario. My friend Nicole and I had a good long walk through some pre-fall colours landscape on the first cool fall day. The big thing with this hike and I like to put the fear into anyone coming along for the first time, because once you start, you are committed to the whole loop which takes a couple of hours. If you're in decent shape, you'll come out the other end slightly achy but in a blissful state of mind from all the forest oxygen.  I took my Nikon F90 and AF-D 28-105 zoom lens. with me on this hike and used Kodak Portra 400. I was pleasently surprised, I usually struggle with this film in terms of scanning and colour correction. I had the F90 on 3D Colour Matrix metering and apertuer priority. Everything looked almost pe...