The light gets
there before you do.
Guided descents from the canopy to the stone beneath it. Move the sun through the trees; flip the switch and the same route waits under the moon.
Five layers. One route.
Every line drops through the same five layers of the forest. Your guide reads each one before you enter it, and the light tells you when to turn back.
01
Canopy
The tallest trees and the first light. We wait for the shafts to reach the trail before we move.
06:40 640 m
02
Understory
Ferns to the waist, fog to the knee. Sound carries strangely here, so the group walks close.
08:10 520 m
03
The floor
Roots, moss and the creek crossing. Lunch where the trunks open up and the ground goes soft.
10:30 410 m
04
The clearing
Light floods the mist. This is where the night line camps and the day line turns for home.
12:00 380 m
05
The shore
The trail meets the water. We wait for the wind to drop and the far bank to show itself, then turn for home.
13:40 350 m
We walk you from the canopy to the forest floor, and back before the light changes.
Since
2019
Routes
Three lines
Group size
2 to 8
Departures
Day and night
Choose your line.
Half day, easy
Canopy Line
A slow walk under the tallest trees, timed so the first shafts reach the trail as you do.
4 h
on foot
6 km
loop
2 to 8
people
See the line
Full day, steady
Ridge Line
Climb through the beeches to the crest, walk it end to end while the valley fills with light, and come down the long way.
7 h
on foot
16 km
ridge loop
2 to 8
people
See the line
Full day, moderate
Understory Loop
Ferns, fog and the long middle of the forest, with a hot lunch at the creek crossing.
7 h
on foot
12 km
loop
2 to 6
people
See the line
Half day, gentle
Lake Line
Down through the trees to the water, along the shore while the light moves, and back before the wind gets up.
5 h
on foot
8 km
shore loop
2 to 6
people
See the line
Half day, winter only
Snow Line
A slow loop through the snow-heavy pines, reading the night's tracks, with tea at the frozen creek and back before the light goes.
4 h
on snow
8 km
loop
2 to 6
people
See the line
Half day, gentle
Fern Hollow
A slow, low walk through the wettest part of the forest, close enough to the ground to see what grows there, with a long stop in the green light.
3 h
slowly
6 km
there and back
2 to 8
people
See the line
Overnight, guided
Night Line
Leave at dusk, walk under the moon, sleep in the clearing and wake to the light coming in.
2 days
with camp
15 km
one way
2 to 4
people
See the line
Evening, easy
Old Mill Path
Follow the mill stream upstream in the late light, over Sam's bridges, to the top meadow for the sunset, and back down by lantern.
3 h
at dusk
7 km
there and back
2 to 10
people
See the line
What we hand you at the trailhead.
Everything below is packed, checked and waiting in your size. You bring boots, water and the morning.
Who walks with you.
The same forest, under every sky.
Notes from the floor.
Asked at the gate.
The questions we hear most, answered the way a guide would answer them on the walk in.
Long rather than hard. Eleven to fourteen kilometres on soft ground with a few short steep pitches on rope. If you can walk for four hours with a pack, you can walk a line. The pace is set from the back, not the front.
We walk in mist, rain, snow and wind; only lightning and high water stop us. If we call a day off, it is our call and you are refunded in full. If you call it, we move you to another date.
From ten on the day lines, from fourteen on the Night Line, always with an adult. Children carry a lighter pack and get the first flask of tea.
Boots and water, that is all. Everything else is packed in your size at the trailhead: headlamp, rope, helmet, shell, lunch, flasks. See the sheet.
For first light you are at the road end around 06:10 in summer, later in winter. A warden walks you the four kilometres in; the guide meets you at the gate.
Six at most, two guides. We do not merge groups, so if you book as three you walk as three.