Hamilton 2025 – Day 4

Alina got up at the crack of dawn to ride to Bramalea GO to catch the bus that arrived at Hamilton Centre GO Station at 8:55. She then rode the short distance over to where we are staying. After a bathroom and snack break we left about 9:30.

We are riding a loop that I have taken many friends on over the years since I first created the route in 2016. I wrote about it in September 2023 when I was cat sitting for my daughter, and Patti stayed with me for a few days of riding.

We took a starting picture in front of a Hamilton mural on Ferguson Avenue. There is a bigger picture of it in the blog post linked above and a description of my encounter with the artist who is touching it up.

Shortly thereafter, we started ascending the escapement rail trail, developed on a former CN railway line in 1993. It starts in Corktown and runs about 8 km to Albion Falls. It offers good views of the Hamilton Brick Works. The company that currently owns it has proposed a public redevelopment of the site. The Don Valley brickworks in Toronto might be used as inspiration.

Hamilton has seven staircases ascending the escarpment. Six built by the city, and one built by a private citizen named Uli. When he built his staircase, the city hadn’t built staircases in the east end of the city. Uli was a retired builder and took matters into his own hands. I wrote about it when I met him doing some repairs in 2016 when I was riding the same route that I did today.

This is Albion Falls. In 2016 when I first visited here, people would hike down to the base of the fall the paddle in the pool, and many foolhardy people would climb the waterfall. After a firefighter was seriously injured, trying to rescue someone here, the city prohibited, hiking around the waterfall, and post the by law officer overlooking it to ensure people comply.

Hamilton has quite a few of these water fountains with water bottle filling station, and pet bowl along their trails. We encountered for today. Alina is looking down the stairs.

It was a bit hazy today, but the views are still impressive.

I was able to experience some high-quality new infrastructure which I had only read about before. The intersection showing in the picture had a significant number of collisions and was very difficult for pedestrians and cyclists to navigate. The city has reconfigured it with traffic, lights and a protected multi use path. The Muse path which was installed along mountain brow Boulevard several years ago has now been extended by 1.2 km and includes this new protected infrastructure. It felt very safe. Every time I come to Hamilton, I find new infrastructure.

According to the project drawings, the multi-use path should have extended along the road at this point, but perhaps until the issue of soil remediation in this park, which has caused this part to be fenced off, is handled, it won’t be built. However, multi-use path did connect with a pathway on the escarpment side of the park, so it’s not really a problem that it wasn’t also built along the roadway.

We stopped at Incline Coffee on Concession Street for a snack. They make great chocolate chip cookies.

Here’s another great view of the lower city. Sam Lawrence Park provides an excellent vantage point.

The City has built a wonderful protected bidirectional multiuse path on the Claremont access named for kindergarten teacher, Jay Keddy, who was killed biking on the access in 2015. It’s super fun to ride down, and I have cycled up it three times, and while it is more challenging than the trail we used this morning in terms of the steepness, it’s about a quarter of the distance. This is the top end.

At this point at the top of the Jay Keddy trail, it used to turn into a sidewalk, but the multi-use path is being continued along West 5th Street.

The St Joseph’s healthcare site on West fifth is dedicated to treating mental health and addiction. This building on the same site was the Hamilton insane asylum, which operated from 1884 until the 1980s.

This trail was built in the last few years to allow cyclist and pedestrians to stay closer to the edge of the escarpment.

It comes out onto Sanatorium Road by the Long & Bisby Building, part of the former Chedoke Sanatorium (also known as the Mountain Sanatorium). It was originally built in 1920 as a nurses’ residence and later became a daycare center before closing in 2013.

This area is slated for a large housing development, but there has been a sign up advertising it, as far back as when I first rode by here in 2016.

This two barred cross was erected in 1953 as a symbol for the fight against lung disease, and reminder of the threat of tuberculosis. It’s just down the street from the former site of Hamilton Sanatorium.

Scenic Drive has homes on one side, and the escarpment on the other. There were still quite a few nice, modest older homes, but they are slowly being replaced by larger modern ones.

This is McMaster University from an opening in the trees just before we started to descend Chedoke Radial Trail.

It is an unpaved, but quite smooth multi-use path that is a popular section of the Bruce Trail and follows the former route of the Brantford and Hamilton Electric Railway.

Here is Alina crossing the 403.

This is another floating bus stop on Emerson Street, which connects the Hamilton Brantford Rail Trail and McMaster with a bidirectional cycle track.

This is the McMaster Children’s Hospital up close, which could be seen from the top of the escarpment.

We rode through the McMaster campus, and then down to Princess Point. This little train runs between Pier 7 and Princess Point.

The trail goes under the 403 and the GO train line. The stairs lead up to Dundurn Avenue, but are currently closed due to needing repairs.

The land on Pier 7 and eight is slated for redevelopment. The city built a new park there ahead of the development. These 40 foot high panels of glass beads created by a local indigenous artist, and Hamilton’s largest public art piece, were unveiled at the West Harbour for the National Truth and Reconciliation Day in 2023. There are more pictures in this blog post from 2023.

When I was last there, it wasn’t completely open, so I didn’t get to experience this combination stairs, and ramps. It was interesting, but I think it might be easy to ride off the edge of the ramp. There are handrails for those who need them.

We had lunch at Williams’s fresh Café, and then continued along. Pier 8 past the newly developed park. One can still see Hamilton’s industrial past on Pier 10.

I always stop at the collective arts brewery for pictures of the amazing street art.

After that, it was only a couple kilometres back to the house for gin and tonic, before Cindy went to her granddaughter’s house to accompany her by bike to her baseball game, and Alina caught the bus back to Brampton.