Maple Brook Falls

From Myles Doyle Falls, I decided to pay a visit to Maple Brook Falls, the trail head to which I had located in the fall of 2012, but which I had not previously visited. From Melford, I turned south onto the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 105) and headed for Kingsville, passing by the Glendale end of the Maple Brook Road, although it is the shorter route to the falls, since it is sometimes, though not always, a bit difficult for a low-slung vehicle (some road repairs in 2014 considerably improved this part of the road). In Kingsville, I took exit two and turned onto Riverside Road and very shortly thereafter onto Maple Brook Road; this route has usually been in somewhat better shape. I stopped for photos at several spots along the scenic Maple Brook Road, but the ones seen here are better than those I got this day, so I will refer you to them. Just before its junction with the Maccuish Road, the Maple Brook Road crosses the bridge over Maple Brook and, at the junction, makes a sharp left to head for Glendale. 920 m (⅗ mi) past that junction, one arrives at a curve that is the trail head to the falls (at GPS 45°48.515'N 61°17.893'W). The site is sometimes marked with a sign or flagging tape, but this day there was neither; however, I could hear the falls from the road and remembered the spot from my 2012 investigations. The short hike of roughly 90 m (300 ft)) down to the falls is steep and mostly follows a brook bed that was wet and mucky this day from all the recent rains (I wore my woods boots). The photos on this page come from the bridge and at the falls.

Photo #1 was taken at the bridge over Maple Brook on the Maple Brook Road just before its junction with Maccuish Road. It looks upstream at a fairly swollen and somewhat turbulent stream full of brownish-hued water, a sure sign of recent run-off. Here, the brook is lined with evergreens, not the eponymous maples, which are seen along the stretch heading towards Glendale. The lush green patches of grass and wildflowers extend some distance out into the brook.

Photo #2 is the downstream view from the bridge; here, the water is placid enough that it serves as a fairly good mirror for the nearby vegetation. The skies here are already covered with a sheet of thin white clouds; in another hour, they would darken and threaten rain.

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After descending the short trail to the falls, which ends at great slabs of rock extending halfway out into the brook, I was greeted with the scene in photo #3, where the upper falls, perhaps a metre/yard high, are seen at the centre of the photo. So regular is the flow over these falls, it looks almost like the overflow of a small dam, though a couple of more turbulent spots can be seen at the left of the brook above the falls.

Photo #4 is a telephoto view of the upper falls, which shows that the left side of the falls has what looks like a broken slab of flat stone behind the falls, accounting for the turbulence and irregularity of the left third of the falls. The remainder, however, seem as regular as a manmade dam.

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Photo #5 looks to the left of the upper Maple Brook Falls, where a huge slab of rock can be seen above the pool formed by the falls. The whole site is surrounded by rock slabs of this size or larger on both sides of the brook; I do not know what causes the tilt or the striations seen, but they too are seen on the other rocks around the falls. Lots of grass can be seen along the side of the brook, so its flow is apparently not sufficiently strong during run-off to carry it away.

Photo #6 looks to the right of my vantage point just upstream of the lower falls. Here, too, considerable amounts of grass have taken hold and maintained their position at the lower edge of the pool below the upper falls. The white water at the far right is in the short chute leading to the lower falls. In the lower foreground, you can see the edge of the rock on which I was sitting as I took the previous photos; it juts well out into the brook, narrowing its width by half.

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Photo #7 is a wide-angled view (because I was so close to the falls) that shows the end of the short chute leading from the pool below the upper falls to the lower falls. Given that the brook is only half its width, being constrained by the rock jutting into the brook seen in the lower foreground, the flow is fiercer here than at the upper falls. Although it is hard to tell in this photo, the height of the lower falls is also considerably greater than those of the upper falls, reaching perhaps 5 m (16 ft) in height. Notice again the tilted, striated rock on the far shore.

Photo #8 is the best photo of the lower falls that I have from this vantage point, looking at them dead on from the side. The white water is partly backwash, but also caused by some hidden rocks directly below the falls.

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Photo #9 looks at the falls from the shore just below the falls, where one can get a better idea of their height (the previous ones were taken from the rock face seen at the left of the photo). The pool below the lower falls is wide, having reached across on the opposite side a fair distance, a tribute to the power of the falling water.

Photo #10 looks downstream from the rock slab from which the earlier photos were taken. It shows the width of the pool and the brook continuing off in the distance, with rocks lining its path. The foam of the cascade continues clear across the pool and collects at the side. The lovely strip of grass one sees at the right of the brook would be a wonderful vantage point from which to view the lower falls face on (Wally Ellison’s excellent, beautiful, and useful publication, Waterfalls—Cape Breton’s Hidden Treasures [no date, no place of publication, no page numbers], has a fine frontal view of the lower falls taken from there in the section “The Brooks and Waterfalls of the Creignish Hills” that shows them looking much taller than their height when seen from above and to the side). I tried to find a way over there, but the terrain is rocky and very rough and I saw no way of reaching that area that I was comfortable taking, so I abandoned the attempt, not wanting to get myself in a pickle. Wally says that the pool is a favourite swimming spot and indeed, on a later trip here, I met two young lads on the way down for a swim as I made my way back up to the car. On that later trip, much less water was flowing: the upper falls were reduced to three separate small cascades; the lower falls were very docile with only a single fairly gentle cascade. So, for the true impact of these falls, it is best to see them during the run-off or after some heavy rains.