To the Editor:
"A wise man climbs Mount Fuji once. A fool climbs it twice." -Japanese proverb
As a recent transfer to your community, I have been heartily advised by several people in the past week to explore the highly vaunted Millennium Trail. A colourful brochure from the friendly staff at the Heritage North Museum features two casually dressed hikers effortlessly strolling down a wide, paved path under blue skies. As I calmly set out on a Sunday afternoon, little did I expect to discover an odyssey worthy of Lance Armstrong on an off day.
The trip started smoothly enough at the museum with clearly marked signage and several plaques brimming with interesting historical details. Once I left the parking lot, however, the woods suddenly converged on the trail, allowing a dogwood-ensconced spittlebug to dash his bubbly chalice against my left forearm and christen my epic voyage. Apart from the odd tree across the trail, the first leg of the journey was smooth, and I enjoyed scenic outlooks over the city, the children's murals along the Cliff Park tennis courts on Princeton Drive in Eastwood, and a close-up of the famous mural, based on the Bateman wolfscape.
Shortly after, while savouring snatches of autumnal yellows and the pleasant pungency of ripened low bush cranberries, I nearly careened off of a Wal-Mart shopping cart, which managed to wander far from its home outlet. [Indeed if the early prospectors were seeking such comestible carriages in their explorations, they would have hit the mother lode.] The clearly marked signage began to vanish beneath swirling tides of graffiti, and I strayed from the designed trail several times. I duly lost the path at Princeton Drive and caught up with it at the power lines, before losing it again in a minor maze of ATV trails and dirt roads. After eventually arriving at the aqueduct, I used my cell to leave a message on my parents' answering machine informing them of my general location, direction, and potential time of disappearance.
Once I was back on track, I thrilled my way through a veritable boreal roller coaster, swerving around roots, branches, and moss outcroppings. It was then that I became acquainted with the brown, metallic, swinging-arm 'guillotines', which faithfully pointed the way while providing an added rush of excitement on slopes and corners. In several places, I would have been quite lost, were it not for the judicious placement of litter blazing the trail. After some truly breath-taking hills [regardless of whether I was going up or down], I emerged near the sewage treatment plant, much to the dismay of a small flock of black, burnished vultures croaking impatiently for my speedy demise.
The trail gave me the slip yet again when I emerged on a grassy knoll across from City Hall. In fact, over the course of the journey, my bicycle tires were subjected to an astonishing array of surfaces: tall grass, gravel, pavement, wood chips, sphagnum moss, fine dark silt which occasionally clamps rubber with a peanut-butter-stuck-to-the-roof-of-one's-mouth tenacity, and cement which could provide geologists with a lesson in tectonic upheaval.
Once I crossed the bailey bridge-minus the looping metallic bands in the brochure photo-I was dazzled by some amazing scenery and well-maintained trails. The Lambair floatplane is beautifully restored and aptly perched in front of a vigorous view of the Burntwood River. By the time I dodged across Mystery Lake Road, the path had swollen to the size of a full-blown road with occasional glimpses of the river trickling through the trees. It was here-around the 55-minute mark of my 'tribulous' travels that I encountered my first person, a quad-rider alongside the river, who politely asked if I was on the Millennium Trail since he didn't want to intrude on the motor-free thoroughfare. For one of the few times, I could confidently identify myself as actually being on the persnickety path.
After another false start, I picked up the trail near the zoo and soared blissfully through the Westwood section, save for a thrilling instance of near filleting, courtesy of a brown, cast-iron 'gatekeeper' on a spirited descent behind Pickerel Crescent. This section of the course is certainly the most travelled on, for I met several folk walking dogs and my first fellow cyclists. Again, my knees were gifted with a workout of quasi-Tour-de-France proportions while my trusty mountain bike skidded atop small hills, scooped along brook-bellied gullies, and swerved around the aforementioned gate-guardians protecting the path from motorized marauders. In fact, one pair of metal arms was spaced so close together that Slim Whitman would have to break into a side-step.
By the time I completed the Norplex section-about 90 minutes into the journey-it seemed that the trail blazers had also had their fill of loops and lunges, opting instead to follow the crumbly, tumbly Burntwood Road sidewalk. Stiff and sweaty, I chugged back to the museum parking lot around the two-hour mark.
In retrospect, I want to thank the kind strangers who suggested I try this trail. However, I would qualify this invitation by emphasizing that a good set of tires, a keen sense of direction, and a strong pair of knees are prerequisites for such an illustrious undertaking. [Spiderman-like reflexes are an added bonus.] If my time in Thompson is anything like the Millennium Trail, it should be an interesting ride indeed.
Breaking the ice/packs,
Keith Hyde
Intrepid UCN adventurer
Thompson
