A Full Day of Hiking in Niagara Falls

After a great night’s sleep, we were ready for a full day of hiking. We started out on the path that leads to Niagara Falls National Park, walked right past all of the attractions that say, “No dogs allowed,” and kept heading up along the river to the Gorge Trails. This was hiking! We grabbed a map that showed six trails, and started out on the Railroad Trail located down in the gorge with loads of shade. It was cool and lovely. Kenobi decided we needed to climb the 300 stairs that lead us out of the coolness and along another trail that walked along the road, but we were able to descend some more stairs back into the trees and hike along some more frightening, narrow trail. That was awesome. I thought Kenobi wasn’t afraid of anything, but he would stop at the most narrow, tilted trail and wait for me to take the lead. How about that? He’ll walk to the edge of a cliff that looks straight down into the rushing river, but hesitates on these trails. Ugh.

We saw chipmunks and squirrels and one snake. Kenobi was all about the chipmunks! There weren’t a lot of dogs on the trail, but the humans commented on how handsome my boy is, and I was told several time, “I like your dog.” It’s nice to meet people who have something in common with me.

We left the B&B at 10:30 and returned at 5:30. Our hike took us from the American Falls all the way up to the dam and back again. We walked up a total of 600 stairs and down 300, laid out on cool grass to cool ourselves three times, and raced after several chipmunks frightening them farther into the trees. We also got a wonderful look at a couple huge hawks. At least I think they were hawks. They were really big, so may have been eagles, but not bald eagles. I need to learn more about birds.