Myra Road Falls
For the last wandering hike of the year we headed out of town, and out of service, to Myra Road Falls (AllTrails Link). It starts at the tip of Porters Lake at the north end of Myra Rd. Which no matter how many times my car's navigation tried to direct me to Mira Rd, it isn't the same place.
According to Garmin, and All Trails, it is about 2km in to the falls, and it really wasn't busy.
When we drove in there was about 4 trucks in the parking lot and at least another 6-8 along the road, and since the trails are all ATV trails, maintained by the Marine Riders ATV Club I was really expecting to see a lot of ATVs on the trail, but for the entire walk we only saw one side-by-side and really couldn't even hear many around.
There is a trail on the other side of the river and I think we saw one person on that trail. Then when we got back to the parking lot there were two people loading ATVs, and then a few more at the road doing the same, but that was all the people we saw.
While you can't hear any road traffic, or the ATVs that are on the other side of the hill, you can hear jets landing at the airport that is north of the falls. Other than that, if you are trying to pretend that you are away from civilization, this is a good place to be.
The trail was pretty well maintained, for ATVs, the entire way out to the falls, and it looked to continue on past. There are still some tress across the trail, but they are high up and sturdy. No worries of any falling and as long as you don't jump they aren't in your way.
There were even a couple of spots where it was cordroyed.
Lots of jumping on the side banks and short detours into to the woods to get around the worst of it. Overall it was a lot easier trail than some others that we had been on this year.
So Green
Typically when we head out in late December the "white balance" is really leaning towards blue. There are not leaves in the trees, if not snow there is ice over everything, especially in the woods, but this trail, and everything around it was very, very green.
It reminded me of walking around in the western parts of Washington or Oregon at this time of year. Even when NS is green there is typically other colours around too, even in very early spring.
No Cell service
If you do head out this way, please make sure that people know where you are going and what time you are expected to be home. Typically when I go out there is service and I only casually mentioned to my partner where we were going. They didn't know the exact trail, or how long the hike was going to take. I didn't realize that there was no service until I got us out of the car and were starting off.
Now the right thing to do was to get back in the car to find service before heading up the trail, but with a 6yo just getting out after the 40min drive and not wanting to have that battle before hiking for 4km, I decided to go for it. Besides, there was a lot of activity in the parking lot, of course there's going to be people around.
I didn't even have my InReach with me.
Otherwise, its a great trail to get out and not see many people, at least at this time of year. It may be busier in the summer and when the snow is on the ground.
Myra Road Falls Trail
