The Victoria Small Dog HIKING Group is back for another May to September run, and we're going to start with a great hike that Tidbit and I only discovered recently.
Tidbit and I often head off to the Highlands, Gowland Tod, and Mount Work areas of Greater Victoria. In fact, we're often out there several days a week, and the majority of the hikes the Small Dog Hiking Group will do this year are in that vicinity.
While looking at my AllTrails app recently, I noticed a winding, crazy looking trail out near Mount Stewart called "Electric Avenue", and I thought, "Tidbit and I HAVE to try that"! So we headed out to Langford, up Millstream Road, and then along to the end of Stewart Mountain Road, which itself is a winding, fun 1.7 km drive.
Parking at the side of the road, we headed out on the Bellamy Trail, which is a long, moderate route that would take you all the way back to Millstream if you walked to the other end of the trail. The terrain changes often. Sometimes you have gravel underfoot, other times hard-packed forest trail. Our walk out is mostly flat or downhill. You're hiking through Douglas Fir and Garry Oak country, and sometimes you might have a little stream or a wet patch to hop over. Shouldn't be too bad now though.
After about .75 km, we turn off Bellamy and hit the Electric Avenue trail. Now we're walking on single-track, and it's way fun. There are lots of roots and rocks and sometimes a tree might have fallen across the trail, but it's all good. Mostly up at the beginning, and then up and down the rest of the way. The trail is about 1.25 km.
When we reach the end of the Electric Avenue trail, we then connect to the Electric Light trail. This trail is a bit less demanding than the Electric Light trail, it's a bit wider, but the environment is much the same - beautiful forest, nice shade on a sunny day, and a lovely natural escape from the noise, hustle, and stress of daily life and city living. Quiet too.
After about 1.2 km, we get back to the Bellamy Trail. And now it's time to pay the piper for the downhill hiking you've been doing in many places along the route we've taken so far. Although the hike back to our starting point is not all uphill, a fair bit of it is, and you may appreciate your hiking pole on this section if you chose to bring one. It's 1.4 km back to our cars, which makes this hike a total of 4.6 km.
This is a great hike that will serve as the benchmark for our hikes moving forward. It's not too difficult, as I want members to experience a modest hike by which our later hikes can be measured. If you attend this hike, then you'll know what I mean when I say future hikes are "more/less difficult than Electric Avenue"!
I've posted a massive load of photos in the Photo section of this posting. Browsing through them should give you a good sense of the hike. While I've tried to add depth to the photos, unfortunately, they make the hike look rather flat, rather than showing the 121m of elevation gain included in this route.
The dogs will do fine on this hike. There are no leash requirements and if they're in good shape (and you are too!) then they should just fly along the trail. I'm planning on this hike taking 1.5 hours, with two 5 minute breaks. The group will have to stay together as there will be no trail markers (unlike the Small Dog WALKING Group) so be sure you can keep up with Tidbit and I. We're not super fast hikers, but we don't straggle either.
