Halfway Log Dump, the quiet Grotto

The booking, which people miss

Halfway Log Dump is inside Bruce Peninsula National Park and its parking has its own reservation system, on a shorter season than the Grotto and with its own slot times. Because the name does not sound like a destination, visitors assume it is a pull off you can chance. For the middle of the summer it is not.

• A reservation is required from June 19 to September 7, booked through Parks Canada like the Grotto but on its own slots. There are 2 of them, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., which are longer than the Grotto's 4 hours. From September 8 to June 18 it is first come, first served with self registration at the lot.
• Emmett Lake Road is not plowed, so Halfway Log Dump is closed from mid November to mid April. Our winter guide covers what is open instead.
• Washrooms and drinking water at the parking lot, and washrooms again near the beach. No food is sold here, so bring what you need.

The walk down

About 2 km return. Easy walking, and a very long cobble beach at the end of it.

The access trail is packed gravel and wide, with distance markers every 100 m and benches along the way, and it gives away nothing about what is at the end of it. The last stretch down to the water is loose rock washed down the path, so that part needs more care than the rest. Then the trees stop and the whole coast opens at once.

The beach is cobble rather than sand, rounded white limestone worn smooth, and it shifts a little underfoot. Water shoes make both the walking and the wading easier. This is a beach to put a towel down on and stay, not a shoreline to fight your way along.

Keep walking

Most people stop where the trail meets the water, take the photograph and sit down. The white blazes run along this coast in both directions for as far as you feel like going.

Walking on from there gets you a stretch of beach to yourselves on a day when the Grotto is shoulder to shoulder. Keep going past the bedrock shelf and the shore does turn to real boulders, which is where the bouldering routes are. The first of those hold threatened wildflowers, so stay on the rock there.

Swimming, sunbathing and paddling

This is what the place is for. There is enough beach that you are not laying your towel down next to anybody, the cobble holds the afternoon heat, and on a calm day it is some of the clearest water you will swim in anywhere. It is still Georgian Bay, so it stays cold enough to make the first minute count. Water shoes make the entry easy.

It is paddling water too. The walk in is only about 1 km on a wide packed trail, so carrying an inflatable board or a light kayak down is a real option if you do not mind the load, and floating over that bottom is a different way to see it.

When to go

• Evening. The second parking slot runs to 8 p.m., so there is time to be down there well after the middle of the day has cleared out.
• Late May and June for cool walking and nobody around. The water will be too cold to stay in.
• September for the best combination of warm water and empty shoreline.
• Not when there is surf running. This coast takes the weather straight off the open bay and wet cobble underfoot with waves coming in is no fun at all.