Well after missing a couple of months of hiking (yea, we got off to a slow start its now October) we returned back to the Sooke hills to do some hiking. On this trip we decided to not just walk along the river but head up on the galloping Goose trail and then take a side trip.
We had seen a side trail just off the Goose and we decided that it needed following to see where it lead to. We discovered a fantastic waterfall about 300m up the trail shown here with me beside it.
John beside the waterfall
Continuing past the waterfall and up the hill we discovered the Sooke water main which is due to be decommissioned soon since a new one has been laid under the Goose.
Out of curiosity we decided to follow the water main and have a nice walk along it. This would be our longest hike to this date, we ended up doing about 7 – 9k this day. I discovered how out of shape my legs where at this point as we neared the end of the hike I started having some knee pain which got pretty painful at the end and took a couple days to heal up.
As you can see by the pictures below there are some spectacular looking areas along the water main which makes hiking it worthwhile. Getting to it was an easy task since it was right at the end of this trail and there was even a small ladder available to climb on top of it. The pipe is well travelled as you can see in the pictures, most likely by adventurers like us.
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- John beside the waterfall
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- The path ahead on the watermain
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- The Sun on the pipe behind us
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- The path on the pipe
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- The shed along the pipe
If you do find yourself along this water main hiking you will need to remember that there is only a few entrance points to even get on the pipe as we discovered and they are about 4k apart. It does make for a great hike though.
One of the great hidden things you can find in the Sooke hills is this old outbuilding which was used to store equipment, most likely for maintenance of the water main. Caught at the right time of year it is very picturesque.
The shed along the pipe
I would recommend this as a great 3hr hike to find the trail it is about 200meters from the top parking lot where you enter the Galloping Goose trail.
John
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