A visit to Springridge Farms

On Saturday Emma, Starr and Emma's friend Chloe visited Springridge Farms near Milton. Here is Emma's summary....

"We went to the corn maze and jumped on hay bales. We took a pony ride and saw lots of animals. We took a wagon ride and painted pumpkins. We got candy. It was a lot of fun"

Webster's Falls

A quick hike to the Spencer Gorge after work and school for the Wadd Squad today. A very wet autumn has Webster's Falls at normal spring flows. A beautiful spot.

Hike at Tiffany's

It was another fantastic weekend last Sunday so the Wadd Squad went for a short hike on the new trail at Tiffany's Falls. It has always been an adventure scrambling up the creek or along the earth embankments to get to this waterfall. Fortunately the Hamilton Conservation Authority have created a new trail complete with two bridges to make it easier to see one of the Hamilton areas best kept secrets.



Once we got to the Falls, Emma and Mike hiked up the gorge hillside to get a view of the small washboard falls (see above). It was a wonderful autumn day. One of the new bridges is shown below.

Some snow

3 days after the North American Champs were over this is what the forest looked like. A little bit of snow but nothing like the 30-50cm that fell in the Niagara-Buffalo area.

1st flurries of the year

Time to get out the hat and mitts. The first flurries have arrived (and snow in nearby Buffalo). Sandy Hott Johansen helped Emma pick out this hat in Estonia in May. Emma says thank you Sandy!

30th Orienteering Anniversary

In early October 1976 Mike ran his first orienteering event. The map and course is shown above. Does anybody that ran the North American Championships on weekend recognize the area? Yes it is east side of the new Rocky Ridge map. Mike drew the 1976 course on the new 2006 map below. This weekend Mike and Emma plan to go to the area and re-run the 1976 course on the 2006 map. The Waddington record (that has stood for 30 years now) is 60.25

15th Wedding Anniversary

Wedding Day at Maplewood in the beautiful Dundas Valley (October 11th, 1991)

Cross Country Champs

It has been a busy few days for Emma. Today was the Hamilton Schools Cross Country Championships at Churchill Park. The course was wet, muddy and a little longer than her school race - all things that favoured Emma. Emma ended up in an amazing 3rd place out of the 84 girls in the race. Emma was just behind her best friend Chloe. Led by Chloe's 2nd and Emma's 3rd, GR Allen won the Grade 3 girls competition.

Ontario Champs

The North American Championships also doubled as the Ontario Champs. Emma won the girls under 12 category in the long distance on Sunday. The photo shows Emma and Fiona Adams racing to the last control. Fiona's Daddy (Mark) and Emma's Daddy (Mike) were the course planners for the North American Championships.

North American Championships

The Golden Horseshoe hosted the 2006 North American Champs. It was the third time GHO (formerly HKF) hosted this race. Mike was the co-course planner with buddy Mark Adams. The two had been working on the race for over two years and probably put in over 500 hours of volunteer time to make the race the success it was. Over 350 people representing over 1000 participant starts took part. Fantastic weather, a great race venue and fantastic autumn colours made for a great weekend.

The feedback for the race was wonderful. People loved the race.

The photo above is Emma and North American Sprint Champ Patrick Goeres drawing their routes. Mark Tarnopolsky makes his way to the finish in the sprint race at McMaster University (below)