Silent Valley Trail is a 5.5 kilometre moderately trafficked loop trail located near Chatsworth, Ontario, that offers wonderfully scenic views and is good for all skill levels.
Tucked between the gentle slopes of a long-vanished glacial landscape and the cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment, it is an oasis of peace and tranquillity. On our visit, a warm and sunny November day, we did not see another person inside the forests.
Silent Valley Nature Reserve remains a hidden gem. Maybe I shouldn’t be writing these posts…
After heading north from our car several hundred metres on the muddy road, we came to a very useful information board, detailing the history of the Silent Valley Nature Reserve.
These peaceful forests, flower-rich meadows and sparkling wetlands belie its turbulent past, a past that extends 12,000 years to a time of glacial scouring and upheaval, through to the settling by pioneers in the 1800s, and later the industrial harvesting of trees for commercial use. Evidence of this turbulence is found in the hills of glacial debris, scouring of the Escarpment rock, the ruins of a sturdy homestead with its apple trees and tangled gardens, and the scars of indiscriminate logging.
It also contains a unique monument to an aviation tragedy. This rural and partially wooded property is where a Cessna 205, en route from Toronto International Airport to Griffith Island in Georgian Bay, crashed in a violent thunder-storm on 26 September 1970. The pilot and three passengers were all killed after the airplane was torn apart in mid-air and crashed. The twisted and battered wreckage, which was scattered over a large area, was collected up and pieced together into the shape of airplane, forming a makeshift memorial. The most prominent feature is the tail section, with the rest barely recognizable as once being a part of an airplane.
With the acquisition of this diverse 200 acres by the Bruce Trail Conservancy – the forest, home to the endangered Butternut, is filling in, blurring the scars of the past. The bright meadow that was cleared for farming and logging is now a place of tranquillity.
This is worth a day hike.
FYI: Many sections of this trail were, and apparently are, always wet, especially with the lower areas of the trail where streams run from the marshes. Be prepared.
Below is a chronological photo gallery of the hike.
Enjoy.
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