The Hockley Valley, just north-east of Orangeville, Ontario, is a beautiful area, and right in the centre is the Hockley Valley Provincial Nature Reserve. My first visit was back on August 11th, 1999, and eleven years and one month to the day I returned just recently, on Sept 11th, 2010. The hike offers lots of rolling hills, a varied forest, and ravines with rivers and bridges.
This hike has the main Bruce Trail as its backbone, with a number of side-trails to reduce the amount of duplication.
(I've designed this page to be simple with no pictures on it
so that you can print a copy and take it with you.
The pictures are linked at each stage, with a camera icon 
and are all contained
on the pictures from around the Hockley Valley Provincial Nature Reserve page.
Please send us any comments/corrections to brucetrail [at] wholemap.com
Click here to return to the main page,)
or grab some water, your hiking shoes, compass, GPS, and camera and take a hike!
| General Location: | Just north-east of Orangeville.
You can see the location of this hike with other Web sites in the same area  | |
| Bruce Trail Reference 20.0 | Start | Map #19 Mono Centre Caledon Hills section |
| Total Bruce Trail Distance | 4.4 km (km 76.4 to km 80.8) | |
| Tom East Side Trail Distance | 2.3 km | |
| Glen Cross Side Trail Distance | 4.0 km | |
Close by:
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on the left / north side of the road about 5 km from Hwy 10.There are a few side trails here, so you can choose how far you want to hike, but I'll describe:
Stopping for a bit of lunch, and lots of pictures, this hike took me about 4 hours.
Leave the the parking lot
and turn to your right, west, for a short walk down the side of the road - the gravel shoulder is wide, but be careful.
Watch for the trail leaving the road, up wooden steps
on your left. You'll walk around a large boulder in the path, and a private house and property on your right,
before entering the Hockley Valley Provincial Nature Reserve and after just a couple of minutes you'll see the southern
end of the Tom East Side Trail.
You'll continue straight on the blue blazed marked side trail, rather than turn left along the main trail.
The trail, named after Tom East, Caledon Hills president from 1965 to 1969, climbs and then offers a
view to the left across the ski hills.
The sidetrail is consistent with the rest of the trails in the area,
a well marked trail with a high canopy
old wooden fences.
At one point there are the remains of an old log cabin, complete with window frame.
There are a few switchback sets of steps down and out of small ravines, even a bench in the bottom of one ravine. I'm not sure how long this change has been in effect, but the trail through the meadow has been closed, and the parth re-routed and well marked through the forest. A reminder that much of the Bruce Trail is on private property and only exists thanks to the generous access granted by many people.
You'll cross over a fence, then notice quite a steep drop to your left as the path follows the top of a ridge - keep kids close along this section!
You'll climb over one more ladder ,
through a meadow ,
then turn left and follow a small creek up the hill and over a small bridge,
before connecting back to the main trail.
You're now at the north end of the side trail; turn right, north, to continue up the main trail for about 2 kms.
The path once again goes down into, and out of, ravines with
small rivers
and
4 or 5 bridges (we lost count) and the sound
of running water. One of the bridges had a long two-log high block in front of it
but I'm really not sure why... to stop mountain bikers, perhaps? But there were no tire tracks, and few bikers are riding up
or down those stairs... I'm curious!
At the top of one of the ravines you find the
south end of the Glen Cross Side Trail on your right
Continue north, on the main path. After a while you'll see the Snell Loop Side Trail on your left, then about a km after the south end
of the Glen Cross Side Trail you'll see the north end of that side trail.
This is as far north as we'll get - about 2.5 kms south of a parking lot on Dunby Road. Instead, we'll turn to the right (north-east) on the Glen Cross Side Trail to head south back towards the parking lot. Follow the trail south, and the east, before it loops around west and after about 4 km meets the main trail again, where we passed by above in Part 3. Turn to your left (south) on the main trail.
Head south on the main trail, towards Hockley Road.
We're retracing our steps here, but in the opposite direction, until the north end of the Tom East Side Trail - keep to the right (west)
on the main trail.
The path continues through the forest, then out into
a small clearing with sumac and crab apple trees.
On the left there is the slope heading up to the ridge we saw back towards the start of the hike.
Continue along and up through the beautiful forest
and past the old rusted out blue car
until you get to the highest point, where there are more views over Hockly Road and the ski hills.
Finally you'll see the south end of the side trail we started with, then down to the road. Turn left to walk along the shoulder of Hockley Road, back to the parking lot.