Elora Gorge to West Montrose - Grand River Solo Canoe Trip - Day 1
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2022
- All the clips in this video were filmed on Saturday June 4th, 2022. This video summarizes the first day of my Grand River solo canoeing adventure.
Strava for Day 1: / strava
Grand River Trip: • Elora Gorge to West Mo...
Paddling the Grand River Book: amzn.to/3Np7FUq
cjhoyle's Grand River Paddling Route map: www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?...
In this episode, I was dropped off at the low level bridge in the Elora Gorge Conservation Area where I paddling south to the West Montrose Family Camp (campground). My total paddling distance was 14.8km. I paddled under 3 bridges including the Eighth Line W Bridge, Middlebrook Place Bridge (Chambers Bridge), and the Line 86 bridge. I also paddled past the ruins of an old bridge for the Guelph & Goderich Railway (G&GR). The municipalities I paddled through include Centre Wellington (part of Wellington County) and Woolwich Township (part of Waterloo Region). After arriving at my destination, in the evening I walked to visit the West Montrose Covered Bridge and the Lost Acre Variety store.
Ontario Bike Tour #2 - Day 9: • Conestogo Lake to Guel...
Save the Middlebrook Bridge: / 355885149172210
Trent-Severn Waterway Trip: • Trent-Severn Waterway ...
Rideau Canal Trip: • Kingston to Upper Brew...
Campsite Overnight Oats: • Campsite Overnight Oat...
The canoe is an Old Town Penobscot 16', made of Royalex, which I rented from Element Canoes in Hamilton: www.elementcanoes.com I filmed this video using a Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphone. The GPS I used for the trip is a Garmin eTrex 30.
I hope you enjoyed this video. Please COMMENT and subscribe!
Thanks for watching.
Outstanding work from you! Keep it up gonna watch all your videos now. Very informative work you do and please keep it up!!
Just about to plan my first trip.Thanks for the video.
No problem. Hope you have a great trip :)
Very nice looking area.
Thanks.
Great video! And really nice drone shots
Thanks!
Hey CJ you were not in downtown Bowmanville hahahahah. Another most enjoyable travel video. Your upbeat attitude is most enjoyable looking forward to the rest of your trip cheers 🍻
haha not quite! Thanks, I appreciate the kind words.
Way to go Christopher! You put us all to shame.
Water levels were especially low at this particular time.
Thanks! The good news was that the river was much deeper after the first day and a half of my trip.
We are lucky to have this river in our area. It's a great natural get-away.
Absolutely, I'm jealous!
Man you did excellent, this channel is really underrated. The information, the scenery, the narration all top notch 👌
Thanks, I appreciate it!
As usual your adventures are inspiring ! I must get to that covered bridge. My son lives in Kitchener so that will make for a great cycling destination.
Thanks
Thanks. Yes, the West Montrose Covered Bridge is definitely something worth visiting!
Thanks for sharing your journey, it's beautiful. I've done some rafting on the river and recall the walking portions too at times.
Thanks for watching. Luckily, aside from the first day and a half, I didn't have too much walking to do on this trip.
Hi C,J, thanks you are a gent and l like your ingenuity when faced with challenges also as a cyclist thanks for the bike maintainence and repair videos. Best Wishes C.J....C.J.H
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks!
It wouldn't be summer without watching your extended trips around Ontario and the Canadian waterways. During my last visit to beautiful country, I nearly visited Elora Gorge Conservation Area through ParkBus who provide day trips from Toronto. I look forward to watching the rest of your series.
Thanks!
I enjoyed a lot watching the first day of your canoeing and looking forwards to the rest of your adventure!
Thanks, glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Beautiful scenery on such a sunny day. Thanks for sharing this adventure with us.
Thanks!
these are great dude. one tip, you could linger just a tiny bit longer on the nature shots... would feel less rushed. otherwise these are great. just bought my first kayak (ORU). these vids inspire me.
Awesome! Thanks.
Great to see you back on the water!
Thanks, it felt great to be back in a canoe!
It would be good to see how you pick up and put down the canoe in water in different situations.
On day 1 I actually didn't need to do any portaging. When the water got shallow I could just get out of the canoe which made the canoe float higher in the water, and then I could walk with it.
Great video! Thanks for sharing, cant wait to watch the rest. I've been trying to find time to make this trip in chunks on my Kayak. Would love to connect with you and get any pointers you'd be willing to share!
Thanks! I tried my best to cram as much useful information into these videos for the benefit of others who are interested in doing this trip themselves. However, if there's anything specific you'd like more information about, please feel free to ask.
Thanks for sharing your trip. The Grand is a good canoing river. I’ve enjoyed the river at the Elora Gorge many years ago.
We did the same stretch of river last week. Thanks for the video.
No problem, thanks for watching! The Grand is somewhere I've wanted to paddle for a long time.
So happy to see you traveling again. I've really missed your tours. You seem to have a very interesting life. Hopefully a bike tour sometime soon 🤗
Thanks, I'm happy to be traveling again too!
I quite enjoyed your episode. Interestingly I was in the Elora Gorge taking a whitewater canoeing course the day you shot your video. Your references to your Lake Erie bicycle tour also caught my attention since I biked around Lake Erie in 2003 followed by the remaining four lakes from 2004 - 2007. I just found your lake erie tour videos so I'm going to go check them out. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, small world! My loop of Lake Erie has held up as my favourite bike tour ever. I hope to eventually do the same with the other Great Lakes as you have.
@@cjhoyle Lake Erie was eye opening because it was my biggest to date for me as well when I did it. In ranking order from least favourite to most favourite it would go Erie, Ontario, Michigan, Huron and then Superior. I may do Superior again one day it was that good (37 days, 35 days at an average of 120 km per day, max of 186 km one day)
The next stretch is much better for paddling, shouldn't get stuck nearly as much!
You're absolutely right! Day 2 has now been posted and the amount of walking I needed to do was about 10% of Day 1.
Enjoyed your 1st stage canoe trip down the Grand. I did not know that we had a covered bridge here in Ontario.
Thanks Jim. The bridge is something worth seeing if you're ever in the Waterloo area.
Great first video of this trip. Looking forward to seeing the rest. How did you determine to start at Elora Gorge? Is it possible to start at Lake Heron?
Thanks! Just upstream of where I started there is a section of fairly intense whitewater through the gorge. While it's a fun place to paddle if you're an experienced whitewater paddler (I'm not), but it's not really somewhere that would be ideal for a canoe which is loaded with camping gear. Also, from what I've read, the section upstream from the gorge has some long portages. So I chose to start just downstream of the whitewater section of the gorge. The true starting point of the river is a marsh near Dundalk, but the initial sections of it are too shallow and narrow to paddle except possibly during the early spring.
Nice to see that you got out for a long canoe trip again! I had wondered if you had gone on a long bike or canoe trip as you hadn't been on social media or UA-cam very much a couple weeks ago. Enjoyed the first video, looking forward to the rest of the series! I don't know much about the Grand River so it will be interesting to learn more about it through your videos!
Thanks. This trip was been a long time in the making. The Grand River had been on my list of places to paddle for a long time, so I'm glad I finally got to do the trip.
@@cjhoyle That's great that you finally got the chance to do it! It's nice to see trip videos of rivers such as this one, as most of what is on UA-cam is more northern rivers. It's neat to see that Southern Ontario rivers are great places for canoe trips too!
I feel wonderfully relaxed and so interested in how you are navigating the water, areas that you have had to walk over, and I think it's awesome that your dad can be part of this to help film you!! That's so nice. As for the bridge column that you pointed out and filmed I think I would like to see the bridge taken down but I understand that people can have differing views. I'd be interested to hear their views about maintaining the bridge and keeping it as a historical site. Differing views are always interesting! Do you have an opinion on this issue cj? There are so many beautiful sites and wildlife. Gorgeous scenery and a great way to spend a holiday!! I really enjoy how you go through the history of the area you are cycling or canoeing in!! I look forward to see the rest of your holiday Canoe Trip!! Cheers cj! 🙂
Thanks! During my trip I certainly enjoyed paddling under the historic bridges, so I would be sad to see the Middlebrook Bridge demolished. As one of my viewers pointed out, the vehicles that travel on our roads today have changed an awful lot since these earlier bridges were built. So it's completely acceptable that some of them may no longer be up to the task of carrying regular traffic. A good compromise would be to continue to maintain the bridges for pedestrian and bike use. Last fall I visited London, ON and noticed a handful of interesting old bridges where they had done this. Those bridges are now important parts of their TVP trail network.
How did you charge your electronics? Solar power bricks?
Great video CJ! Out of curiosity, what would be a good # of km to assume 2 people in good physical shape could do daily if you're planning an overnight canoe trip?
Hi Grant. A reasonable pace is 4km per hour of paddling for flat water, and on a river like this you can expect to maintain 6km per hour while paddling. So a daily distance of 25km on a lake is possible without portaging. Down a river it could be up to 50km, again without portaging or resting!
Thanks! It really can depend on a lot of factors. For example, if you end up on a large lake with a strong wind against you, your speed can be cut in half. It's been a long time since I've done a long distance tandem trip, but when I'm paddling solo, a distance of 25km seems to be achievable under most circumstances.
Hi C.J, just want to say thanks for another great video, intrepid, honest and likeable as ever. Would you consider enabling a $ thanks button to go with your video's ? would like to send a token of my appreciation once in a while. Best Wishes and Keep Safe. C.J.H.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words, especially from someone who shares my initials! No financial contribution is necessary. Watching the videos and leaving comments are the two best ways to support my work.
But you didn't actually run the gorge...
Correct. As I mentioned in the video, I started my trip from just downstream of the Elora Gorge (but within a conservation area that has the same name as the gorge).