7 Feb 2022 The Falaise's Terry Fox Trails


   I had seen the roped paths on the very steep slopes under Terry Fox Park but never tried them before.  Thinking they would be a good way of accessing the Eastern Trail, I gave them test run today.  At the same time I could Geo-locate a number of items along the way.


 Terry Fox Park itself has a well used walking path along the edge overlooking the Falaise. At the Eastern end is a "Hole in the Fence" style entrance along with a bird feeder maintained by Falaise Elves.




 

The hillside in this area is so steep it is only possible for me to move downhill by holding on to the rope and sliding down on the snow.  I doubt if I would be able to climb up the trail even with the rope.  The rope is rather thin and not continuous over the full length.  Good, wear resistant gloves are definitely required as well.  A thicker continuous rope would make the journey a little easier.

   





At the bottom of the rope trail I noticed that the Elves had also installed a cable with a pulley system.  I suspect that this was used help remove garbage from the adjacent hillside that looks like it was used as a snow dump at some point.



     The elf that did all this work definitely deserves a big thank you from all the hikers who use this portion of the trail.  It points to the need for a better stairway of some sort to be built allow access to the Falaise from Terry Fox Park.


  I found that the intersection of the Rope Trail and the main Eastern Trail also conveniently connects to the lower Eastern Valley trail.

Link to Map




The Rope Trail explored, I walked over to the Eastern Access Road Garbage Collection Point to update if there has been any changes, then headed over towards the Valley of the Birds.

 
Along the way I Geo-located the  Flower Rock and admired some recent ice sculpture elf work nearby.







  The crows overhead seemed to feel neglected by all this attention so I tried taking a few photos of them using that difficult to focus 400 mm catadioptric lens.
 

 I think I get better results with the much simpler powershot.

I took a few photos of the Eastern Elf's bird feeders and located them on the map as well.



After filling the Valley of the Birds feeders, I continued on to the feeders along the Western Path and climbed up the Via Poutina.  I also added the Cat Houses to the map before catching the 90 autobus home.





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