Ontario's Hiking Trails

As you have read in my last post I am proposing a hiking trail along Wilmot Creek in the town of Clarington, On. For those of you who still like the old names, Clarington consists of Newcastle, Bowmanville, Courtice, Orono and numerous other small hamlets. In doing some research on trail development I was somewhat impressed by the number of hiking trails currently present, or in development in Ontario. It made me proud of those countless individuals who have given of their time and energy to build, and maintain these trails so that all of us can use them. I also felt thankful to all of those private landowners who were receptive to the vision of hiking trails and allow them to cross their lands.
This post is basically a rundown on some of the trails that are available to us Ontario hikers.
I will start with the best known, and the first, lengthy hiking trail developed in Ontario, the Bruce Trail. As I stated in the last post I was a child when the Bruce Trail was under development, as a Centennial project, and my father was one of the people recruited to bring the trail to fruition. The Bruce Trail was the brainchild of a man by the name of Ray Lowes, a metallurgist by trade, for Dofasco in Hamilton. On his free time he wandered the Niagara escarpment, hiking the trails that were present. He envisioned a trail stretching the length of the escarpment in Ontario, from Queenston Heights on the Niagara River, to Tobermory, at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. In the beginning most of it was private land. With the trail project the escarpment was spotlighted and its signifigance became became recognized. The escarpment is now a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve and there have been many land acquisitions by various bodies so that much of it is permanently protected. The website for the Bruce Trail has all kinds of info for you to peruse.
The next trail I will talk about is the Ganaraska Trail. This trail runs from Port Hope on Lake Ontario, to north of Lake Simcoe and then west to Georgian Bay. A side trail links with the Bruce trail near Collingwood.
Sticking in the same geographic area a relatively new trail is the Oak Ridges Trail, which, surprisingly, follows the Oak Ridges Moraine from Rice Lake to Newmarket, just north of Toronto.
In Eastern Ontario the Rideau Trail runs from Kingston to Ottawa through Smith Falls and Perth.
In the Lake Superior region the Voyageur Trail runs Sault Ste Marie to Thunder Bay along some of the ruggedest terrain in Canada. Some of this trail is still undeveloped but there is over 500 km of hiking available!
In south central Ontario the Grand Valley Trail Asociation has developed a trail that runs along the Grand River from Rock Point, on Lake Erie, to the town of Alton, near Orangeville.

These are just the larger hiking trails in Ontario. There are numerous smaller trails that may take a few minutes to a few hours or even a few days to complete. for info on some of them check out Hike Ontario and the Ontario Trails Council.
For those of of us who love the outdoors, the beauty of these trails is that they are always open, in all seasons, in all weather and in most cases they are free to use. If you are into hiking at all you may want to buy a membership in the local association for the trail near you, and a guidebook is never a bad investment.
When you are out hiking on these trails take a moment to think about the men and women who have, and continue, to work hard to provide these trails for all of us. Respect the land and the users code. Say thanks to the many private landowners who unselfishly allow the trails to cross their properties.

Hiking is one activity that almost everyone can enjoy at some level. So take your sons and daughters for a hike. Maybe not today but someday they will thank you in some way for introducing them to the joy of the outdoors. If you have the chance, take someone who has never hiked before on a trail nearby. Once, someone probably did that for you.

To end his post, TAKE A HIKE, EH!

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Winter Wonderland!

Since my last post started telling you about Kilimanjaro, I was reminiscing about some of my training for the climb. As I described in the Kili post I did a lot of spinning for training. However I also did a fair amount of hiking. Most of us will admit to hiking more in the better weather. In fact we all tend to hibernate in front of the TV or, like myself the computer, when the snow starts falling. However lets talk about getting out and about in this snowy winter wonderland. One of the areas that I did some training in prior to Kili was the Durham forest/Glen Major/Walkers woods complex.This area, just south of Uxbridge is less than an hour drive from Toronto. This area is forested, hilly and full of well marked trails. Between the three areas they comprise about 2000 hectares (who knows what the heck a Hectare is?) of wooded area for self propelled recreation. They are well used at certain times of the year, especially for mountain biking. However the shear size of the complex makes it easy to spend hours without seeing anyone other than your own group. On one sunny, cold winter day just prior to leaving for Kilimanjaro, Ray and I spent three hours hiking the hills of Glen Major. We saw some snowshoe tracks throughout the area. This would be a great day trip for all you Toronto snowshoe afficianados. Bring a map and compass and or a GPS because it is a large area and you might feel a hundred miles from the nearest civilization even though you aren't. There are a network of X country ski trails as well. This winters heavy snow fall would make this a good choice for a day outing for anyone looking at nordic skiing. The trails aren't groomed like a commercial ski area but they are free. The last time I went the conservation authorities had not put up any parking fees, but even if they did you would be looking at a couple of dollars for a carload of skiers/snowshoers/hikers. In fact the only people that we saw that day were three X country skiers, well into the interior of the woods. It was really cold that day and we were using the hike to prepare us for the colds at the 20,000 feet. It didn't!! Our beards were covered with ice as you can see in the photos. The remarkable thing about the three skiers that we did meet out on this frigid day was that they were all well into their seventies. They were enjoying themselves! Those people are my heroes! I hope to be as active and unafraid to do things like this when I am their age.

Ray and Myself enjoying the cold!

Other hiking opportunities abound in the winter in southern Ontario. Other training hikes were along the Bruce Trail. If you don't know it it runs from Queenston Heights on the Niagara River to Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce peninsula. It follows the Niagara escarpment and is maintained by volunteers from the Bruce Trail Conservancy. Guide books and maps are available from them by going to their website. The trail originated as a brainchild of Ray Lowes, a metallurgist from Dofasco in Hamilton. His idea became a project for Canada's centennial in 1967 and I remember as a child helping to build sections of the trail in Niagara, and the construction of the cairn marking the southern terminus, at Queenston Heights. In the winter the trail is less crowded and best of all there are no bugs.

Hiking on the Bruce Trail near Grimsby, ON.

You don't have to go that far for a winter hike. Almost all of us have somewhere 'nearby and natural' (to steal someones saying) that we can go for an hour or mores hike. I live in Bowmanville and five minutes from my house is Stephen's Gulch Conservation Area. Last week I was out for a litle cross country ski. I have hiked in the winter and summer and mountain biked as well. I will probably take a quick snowshoe there in the next few days as the snow is
deep right now. The point is that there are endless possibilities for winter recreation. Just get out there and enjoy it!!! We are Canadians after all.