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River

Maxwell Creek

Class

Cascade

Size

Small

Visitability

Mediocre

Accessibility

Free

Activity

Walk Time

10min

Trail

Moderate

Gorge Access

Difficult

Other Trails

County

Grey

From downtown Owen Sound, find 10th St and go west. This road is also Hwy 6. Follow the road for a few minutes out of town, where the road will climb a large hill. Watch for a wide gravel area on the right side of the road. Ok, this is a parking lot for Jones Falls. If I remember correctly, you need to turn around and drive back east for a few hundred metres, and park at the bottom of the big hill. There is an access location for the Bruce Trail along the right side of the road. Follow the trail up the hill, but keep to the left (east). After a short, steep hike, you should reach the stream. Look for the (dry?) bedrock bed. Listen for the creek downstream (?). The creek crosses highway 21 just east of where you parked, so you could check to see if there is any flow here.

Settlement

Owen Sound

NTS Map

41A/10

Easting

501517

Northing

4933519

UTM Zone

A small waterfall located about a kilometre from the much larger and more visitable Jones Falls. I have only visited once, and the falls was dry. However, the interesting feature of this falls is that the creek feeding the falls was NOT dry. While I have not had a chance to confirm, I am pretty sure that little Maxwell Creek drains into fractures and joints in the rock upstream of the waterfall, and then exits downstream, below the waterfall. This is probably not as uncommon as it might seem, since fractured limestone can transmit large volumes of water below ground. If this is the case, the waterfall may never, or may only rarely flow, even though the creek continues to flow.

If anyone visits this site, please let me know what you find!

I do have a print photo that I can scan if anyone is interested.