Eramosa Karst Upper Mount Albion Road, Stoney Creek
By Kristin Archer
Photos by James Miike
Summer is winding down but there are plenty of hot, sunny days still to come. Outdoor adventures are always on my to-do list during any season and it’s something I need to do a lot more of. A quick ride out away from the city and there are so many natural wonders.
My friend James (who took the fabulous photos for this post) let me know about the Conservation Area called Eramosa Karst up on the Stoney Creek Mountain. A forest and streams and caves? Oh my. I’m in!
So what is a karst, exactly? I gleaned from the handy Hamilton Conservation Authority site that karsts are “geological formations including underground drainage, caves and passages caused by dissolving rock, found in limestone formations like the Niagara Escarpment. The Eramosa Karst contains examples of 16 different karst features.” It’s very unique to the area – “The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources designated the Eramosa Karst lands as an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest in 2003, because it is believed to have the largest number of unique karst features in any single area in the province.”
The massive area is a lot of fun to explore with many trails to choose – lots of “fork in the road” moments as you wind around the 4KM of trails and decide which route to take. It’s so quiet and peaceful; we passed just a handful of people on our walk. I had recently finished watching Stranger Things on Netflix, so it was slightly spooky being out in the woods and seeing the cavernous, dark depths we came across on our walk.
I’ll let the rest of the photos do the talking – happy trails!
This is such a great hiking spot to take the dog. There’s some awesome spots to explore without risk of being too advanced for non-explorers. This is actually right around the corner from the GoWrench Auto office so I would love to go back soon!
I recently discovered Karst formations in the THundering Waters Forest in Niagara Falls. I was stunned to see a brook flow into a 25 deep sinkhole. It is important to protect such areas for many reasons. Development encourages pollutants to enter ground water through streams flowing through sink holes. Building on sink holes can lead to disastrous collapses. Let us hope that the Thundering Waters Forest become a protected place like the Eramosa Karst.