The Blackwood Reserve, 184,000 hectares
Trailhead · Meadow Gate
184,000 hectares, and no roads in.
Old forest, open water and living soil, folded into one long valley. The only way through is the way you're about to go: on foot, slowly, listening.
- hectares, protected since 1974
- 184,000
- places to stop on this walk
- 9
- roads inside the boundary
- 0
Cove forest · 0.6 km in
Forty metres up, the light is shared out leaf by leaf.
Step under the trees and the air cools. Tulip trees and oaks catch almost all of the sun before it lands. What reaches the floor arrives in pieces: shafts, flecks, a slow moving pattern of gold.
- cooler than the meadow
- −4°C
- of the daylight reaches the floor
- 2%
- tallest tulip tree in the reserve
- 52 m
Move your hand through the falling leaves.
Forest floor · 1.1 km in
Nothing down here is in a hurry.
Ferns unroll one frond at a time. Moss adds a few millimetres a year. A young newt can walk this floor for seven years before it goes back to the water it was born in. Kneel down. Look closer.
- springtails can share one square metre
- 100,000
- kinds of fern in the reserve
- 40+
- a newt may spend on land
- 7 yrs
Your cursor is a lens. Move it slowly over the ground.
The stream · 1.9 km in
Water finds you before you find it.
Blackwater Creek drops 380 metres on its way through the reserve, cold and clear and stained the colour of weak tea by the leaves it carries. Brook trout hold still in the current. Under the flat stones, something older is breathing through its skin.
- the creek in August
- 11°C
- fall from source to valley floor
- 380 m
- of creek inside the reserve
- 31 km
Touch the water. Click to drop a stone.
Still water · 2.6 km in
Stand still. The pond will start again.
Forty years ago this was a stream. Then the beavers came. One family's dam turned a trickle into four hectares of still water, and everything else followed: herons, dragonflies, and frogs that go quiet the moment they notice you.
- of water behind one dam
- 4 ha
- length of the dam
- 140 m
- since the beavers arrived
- 40 yrs
Move and the frogs fall silent. Wait, and they come back.
Hemlock cove · 3.8 km in
This hemlock was a seedling in 1538.
No one has ever logged this cove. Some of the trunks around you are more than four metres around. When they finally fall they keep working: a single nurse log can feed seedlings, fungi and beetles for another two centuries.
- rings in the oldest hemlock
- 488
- girth of the widest trunk
- 4.2 m
- a fallen trunk keeps feeding the forest
- 200 yrs
Run your cursor across the rings to read the years.
Eastern hemlock, cross-section
1538
0 rings
Beneath the floor · 0.6 m down
Beneath every step, the forest is talking.
Fungal threads finer than a hair wrap the roots of nearly every tree here, trading water and minerals for sugar. The network links old trees to young ones, and a few plants have learned to live on it entirely.
- of plants here partner with fungi
- ~90%
- of this soil holds more lives than Earth has people
- 1 tsp
Click anywhere to send a signal through the network.
Dusk · 5.1 km in
You are being watched.
At dusk the clearing fills with animals that spent the day hidden in plain sight. Our camera traps have recorded 46 species of mammal across the reserve. Tonight, one of them is recording you.
- mammal species caught on camera
- 46
- camera traps across the reserve
- 212
Move too fast and they're gone.
Camera traps · last night
White-tailed deer
Red fox
Bobcat
American black bear
Night · 6.0 km in
The forest doesn't sleep. It changes shifts.
Owls take the hunting grounds from the hawks. Moths take the flowers from the bees. And for two weeks each June, thousands of fireflies along the creek learn to flash as one.
- of synchronised flashing each June
- 2 wks
- species of owl nest in the reserve
- 6
Hold still. Watch the fireflies fall into rhythm.
Dawn · 7.4 km · the way out
You'll leave the forest. It won't leave you.
The Blackwood Reserve is open from first light to last, every day of the year. To keep it wild, we issue 300 free day permits a day and ask every visitor to walk the way you just did: slowly, quietly, and on the trail.
Before you go
Three ways in. All of them on foot.
- Open
- First light to last light, every day
- Permits
- Free, 300 a day, requested in advance
- Groups
- Up to 12 people per permit
- Camping
- Two sites, by permit only
Meadow Gate
Easy7.4 km loop · 3 to 4 hours
Passes the edge, the canopy and the beaver pond.
Blackwater Bridge
Moderate12 km out and back · 5 hours
Passes Blackwater Creek, the understory and the clearing.
Hemlock Ridge
Strenuous16 km loop · 7 hours
Passes the old growth, the hemlock cove and the ridge at first light.
How to walk here
Stay on the trail
The moss you step on took decades to grow. Every trail is marked; every shortcut is a scar.
Carry out what you carry in
There are no bins inside the boundary. Everything you bring leaves with you.
Give wildlife room
Keep 50 metres from any animal and 100 metres from bears. If it changes its behaviour, you are too close.
Keep it quiet
No speakers, no drones. Half of this forest is heard, not seen.
Dogs on a short lead
Welcome on the Meadow Gate loop only, and never off the lead.
No light after dark
Camping is allowed at two sites. Keep torches pointed down: the fireflies depend on it.
Day permits
Walk it for real.
We keep the reserve quiet by letting in no more than 300 people a day. Permits are free and take a minute to request. Bring the reference with you to the trailhead.
- Walked
- 0.0 km
- Elev
- 212 m
- Air
- 11.0°C
- Time
- 06:40
- Canopy
- 0%
The Edge
Protected since 1974
Enter on foot
The BlackwoodReserve
184,000 hectares
Sound is half of this walk. Everything you hear is made live, and it answers to how you move.
Headphones recommended
