Your Fall Adventure. Your Choice

A Four-Waterfall Autumn Day 
Two of Grey County’s most striking natural features complement each other best in autumn: waterfalls, and the multi-coloured canopy of trees, ranging from mellow gold and wine to brilliant yellow and crimson. Fortunately, they’re easy to find in tandem in Grey County. You can make a full day of it, combining hiking, waterfall sightseeing, fall-colour viewing, and culinary adventures.

Eugenia Falls
The views of Grey County’s highest waterfall (30m) will transport you to another world. The powerful falls, now controlled by an upstream hydro dam but always flowing, once supported five mills – and in 1905, Ontario’s second hydro-electric plant.

A well-worn trail in the Eugenia Falls Conservation Area skirts the sturdy stone wall that borders the sheer Cuckoo Valley into which the Falls empty. The view here is a 360-degree explosion of fall colours. You can stroll around the Conservation Area trail network (which connects to the Bruce Trail) and approach the Falls from several viewpoints along the wall. Eugenia Falls is a photographer’s dream playground, particularly in autumn. You’re a short walk from the village of Eugenia and yet totally immersed in nature.

Hoggs Falls
From Eugenia Falls the ambitious among you can choose a foot-powered waterfall-hopping experience and hike on to Hoggs Falls, following the blazes of the Bruce Trail. (N.B.: this is a long, challenging route for experienced hikers only.) Or you can drive to the Hoggs Falls parking lot just off the Lower Valley Road and take a short hike in. Follow the Bruce Trail markings towards the falls and be careful as the viewing point is along the steep riverbank. The woodland setting surrounding the falls is aflame with colour, with the many species of hardwood you’ll find all over the County including maple, beech, ash, ironwood and black cherry.

McGowan Falls
Tucked away in the Durham Conservation Area on the Saugeen River, McGowan Falls is less dramatic a drop than Eugenia, Hoggs and Walters Falls, but its tranquil setting and wheelchair-accessible bridge – that leads to the 60-hectare Conservation Area and the trail system through brilliant hardwood forests – make this an enjoyable outing for everyone. This is the way to experience up close and personal the Saugeen River, once the site of numerous flour and sawmills dating back to the 1840s.

Walter’s Falls
This historic waterfall bears a wealth of evidence of the mill that once harnessed its power (and still does, upstream at Walter’s Falls Milling, Ltd. – one of the last water-powered operations in the province). The thick hardwood, cedar and hemlock forest is a joy to view in autumn. Fall-colourists can choose from several options here. You can walk out on the steel bridge and look down at the dizzying drop from the safety of a viewing platform, hike along the Bruce Trail that bypasses the Falls, or stop for eats and drinks at the well-appointed Falls Inn.

For more information about our Fall Waterfall Tours please visit: www.greybruceadventure.com