This day was a different hike. It was 11.1km entirely within the city of Hamilton. From the East End to the West End, the Bruce Trail quietly passes through this large city which sits on top of the Escarpment, locally known as “The Mountain”, and continues over its edge down to the shore of Lake Ontario and Hamilton Harbour. In all the time that I have spent in this city, and the years that Kim and I spent at high school on the edge of the “mountain brow”, I had never before noticed a Bruce Trail marker. And yet today, they became plainly obvious as they guided us through so many familiar places where we had been before.

It was also different because we had to get Kim’s car to a dealership for a repair and we involved Johnny. Leaving the farm early in the morning, Johnny and I took two vehicles and crawled in traffic to our endpoint on the Chedoke rail trail in the west end of Hamilton to drop a vehicle. And that wasn’t easy as the mass of dog walkers and early morning hikers had all of the parking spots taken. Then we drove to Kim’s house in Dundas and followed her to the dealership in Burlington (yes all in morning rush hour traffic). We dropped Kim’s car and then, after searching for a coffee and bathroom spot, took the QEW over the Skyway Bridge (another congested morning route) to the East End of Hamilton to drop us to the starting point where we then became lost, as there are apparently two Greenfield Avenues now separated by the Red Hill Expressway. I believe Johnny was more than relieved to finally get us out of the vehicle and onto the muddy Escarpment trail! I’m not sure he will participate again ….Kim did say that she had not seen Johnny get so quiet before and that it reminded her of Brett when his patience was tried. Hey – any reminder of a loved one passed feels welcome when you are grieving – like a little something to hold on to.

And we were off!

I love how the footpath is hidden yet still obvious through the October leaves.

I write these blogs with hindsight and enjoy researching the little things that we find along the way. They are supporting acts that add depth and colour to the stories of our hikes. This time, I learned that we missed something great that would have been worth leaving the main trail for, if we had only known.

The Uli stairs were hand crafted over 5 years by a retired man named Ulrich and completed in 2007. He built them in honour of his wife to connect the upper and lower city which did not have a staircase in the east end at that time. Reports note that they are very beautiful and have rails created from the trees felled to make room for the stairs. The rails were sanded by hand and the staircase is accented with gardens and benches. And we walked by! I looked online for a picture of them to post (and there are several) but decided that instead, we will back track and get these photos ourselves another day.

The City of Hamilton struggled with how to handle these handmade stairs which do not meet code and were deemed a public safety risk. It seems there was much controversy. In the end they let the stairs be and posted signs recommending against their use. The City then constructed the Kenilworth stairs in 2006 just 300m west of the Uli stairs. That half a million dollar build was a good spin off from one man’s idea!

The Kenilworth stairs are divided into an upper and lower portion. Here we are looking down at the lower portion called the “Kimberley Stairs” which are 288 steps down to Kimberley Avenue in the east end of the city.

Stella.

In our conversations that day, Kim spoke of needing to meet with someone that she hadn’t seen since Brett died. She also expressed that she didn’t look forward to it, as his death would have to be acknowledged. I still run into this issue. When first dealing with tragic loss, you are a raw, open wound. The world as you know it is permanently changed, its landscape is empty and isolating. Friends and family who stay with you through these heartbreaking times feel the same effects. Together you move forward and the world rebuilds piece by piece, healing, hurting, loving. Somehow, imperceptibly, things get better. But, when encountering someone you know for the first time who has not travelled this journey with you, they seem to have a need to start back at the beginning, if only for a moment. And truly, I think this is more about dealing with their own guilt of not saying something sooner, than it is about considering the grieving person. The “I’m so sorry!”, the droopy eyed, sympathetic frown, these are things that people feel they must do. And it can cause an unravelling, or at least a white knuckle feeling to hang on while you go back to that place of absolute heartache. There are still people I have not seen 10 years later and the longer the time, the more I avoid that potential throwback.

So what should you say when you finally see someone who has suffered tragic loss? Stay in the present. Maybe say, “Paula it’s nice to see you, it has been awhile”.

Don’t say, “You know, I’m so sorry about your daughter, that was so awful. It must be really hard. I don’t know how you did it! I mean, you must still be doing it – right? I mean, it must never go away (sympathetic eyes)”.

What do I say to that?!? I’d like to say “You have no f-ing idea because if you did you wouldn’t have just said that. Do you feel better now? Because I don’t. Can we just talk about something else?”

But instead I say, “Yes, thank you (for acknowledging my dead daughter in my veterinary clinic reception in the middle of my work day). Yes, it is still hard (smile slightly, not going back there today).” Look away, quickly change the topic and talk about something more relevant – like your dog.

This is me. 10 years on, hiking the Bruce Trail with my friend and our dogs. Today is a great day.

Urban hiking scenery:

The trail led us up the Wentworth stairs. This is the most used Escarpment staircase in Hamilton. It has 498 steps, although we just went up the lower half. We braced ourselves for the climb! Note the Bruce Trail marker high up on the pole.

At the top looking back over the city and Hamilton Harbour

I like this picture. Our path took a hard right here as marked in white on the small concrete divider. The blue markers denote a side trail going up the upper half of the stairs. The trail markers frame the graffiti.

The next part of the “Trail” travelled over 2km along Hamilton mountain streets between Upper Wentworth and West 5th. If you ever walk these streets, now you might notice the Bruce Trail signs.

West 5th. We were now just east of our high school. A classmate grew up in this neighbourhood – Chris Beaver. His father was our French teacher. We walked to his house many times. So many memories.

We headed back over the edge of the brow to a beautiful trail below. We had never walked here before. But this could have been then. Forty years ago, 4 decades gone past and really, truly couldn’t Kim, now 55, be fifteen years old in this picture? Age is a funny thing, the rapid passing of time, yet in a moment like this one, time stands still. Did this picture capture a time warp?

Queen Street. Kim and I rode the Waterdown bus. We shared the same bus stop. We travelled up and down this mountain access twice a day from Grade 6 through Grade 13.

The next stop along this memory lane was the Dundurn Stairs. I was a track and field athlete in high school and this was part of our training ground, a painful part in my memory! It was much nicer standing underneath them than doing interval training up and down this steep staircase.

Walking through west Hamilton as it blended into Ancaster was the most beautiful part of this walk. Again we were amazed by the presence of so many fabulous trails in our own backyard.

The final part of this hike travelled along the Chedoke Radial Trial. Of course I had to figure out what a “Radial Trail” is. By definition it is an “interurban” route. This one was the home of the Hamilton and Brantford Electric Railway that ran between the two cities from 1908 to 1931. This small commuter train ran on the hour!Walking along the Chedoke Radial Trail 100 years after the train rolled through.Here is how people travel from Hamilton to Brantford today – the 403 – running parallel to this little piece of history that we were walking along.

We found our vehicle still parked in the small lot off of Scenic Drive where Johnny and I had left it that morning. That’s always a relief! We had walked 11.1km while time travelling back forty years. In total we have covered 121km of this 894km trail. Only 773km to go.

After picking up Kim’s car we found a place to eat. We had a laugh because neither of us could see the menu well enough to read it and we had to share the one pair of reading glasses that we had. This was a gentle reminder that we were, in fact, no longer 15. It just felt that way.