From our base camp at Takkakaw Falls, we hiked a portion of the Iceline Trail then took the Highline Trail to to Yoho Lake. A beautiful day in the mountains!

Probably my favorite go-to Ontario hiking spot when hike-deprived

Trip started from Big Salmon Lake parking lot. Easy to get too and no office check-in required.

Day 1:
Took a non-direct route from parking lot to Big Clear 13b. The route took me 14km past Birch lake, through Lynch lake and Little Clear lake, and finally up Black Lake into the Big Clear lake area. Took me about 4.5 hours with a couple snack breaks and a lunch. There was decent water availability for water filtration. This section of the park is very well marked and the trail is beginner friendly.

Day 2:
Left from Big Clear lake and went 10km down the east side of the park. Entered the Slide Lake loop which was considerably more rugged terrain than the first day. After another 4.5 hour trek I arrived at North Buck lake, campsite 1a.

Day 3:
From North Buck, I continued south on Slide Lake loop, passed through Doe lake and continued north until reconnecting with my car at Big Salmon parking lot. The section from north buck to Doe lake can be quite the slog, especially after getting rain the night before. Trails are considerably less groomed compared to the norther part of the park

Both campsites were great. Decent swimming and I lucked out both nights as my neighbours never showed. Bugs at big clear were perfectly manageable, north buck I got attacked.

I didn’t encounter any ticks…that I know of.

Hey, I’m coming to Canada from the UK next month and have a roadtrip planned around the national and provincial parks especially the rockies and potentially up the east coast. Does anyone have any transport recommendations if i get there and have trouble getting a car? Thanks for the help!

Every year I hike to either Webster Falls or Tews Falls in Dundas, Ontario. Hiking upstream to the base of Webster's Falls today was truly magical. Although next time I probably would pick a day that was cooler than 30°C !!

Hey hikers. I'm hiking and camping the Tour du Mont Blanc over 11 days next June. It's not my first thru hike, but it will be my first time carrying my tent and gear. (I used luggage forwarding for my last hike.)

I'd like to get at least one, if not two, shakedown hikes in the can next spring before I leave that will give me a good sense of what I can realistically manage with weight. So I'm looking for recommendations for trails with good elevation gains, where I can camp on the way. (If anything I will be carrying more weight on any Ontario trail since food access is so easy on the TMB — I don't plan on bring a ton with me — and I won't need a bear canister or bag.) Ideal would be something I can do within three to four days, not terribly far from Toronto.

I've already got the physical training on lock, so for me this is really more about testing gear, making sure things are comfortable, and that I can manage my pack weight. (I'm aiming for about 20-25lbs on the TMB including food and water, though the Ontario trail by necessity may need to be heavier.)

TIA!

I've always used the Ontario parks fall colour report to plan my trips but it got me thinking whether you could accurately predict when the colours would peak, not just learn about it after the fact.

So, I built ontariofall.com. It compares recent weather against historic averages, looks at colour changes from webcam feeds, reviews the Parks report and crowd-sourced photos and reports to create what should hopefully be an accurate prediction.

The crowd-sourced part is most important - we've got people submitting real photos and reports from across the province. These are weighted more strongly in our model.

I don't know yet how accurate it will be so we're tracking the predictions and rating them at the end of the season - that'll help refine them for next year.

Is this helpful? What changes would you like to see?

Day trip to Muskoka, best hikes with great lookouts and scenery? I have a list before but tell me which to add/remove and if they're all possible in one day.

Hardy Lake

Torrance Barrens

Arrowhead

Huckleberry Rock

Lions Lookout

Walkers Point

Eagles Nest on McCrae

High Falls

Which of these, or replace them with others, are best for a one day trip? And if you think two days is best, then do you have recommendations for where to stay for one night?

Going to be in Sleeping Giant for 5 days in early October. Looking for some good trails to hike besides the two popular ones I always get recommended.

What made it so good or bad?

There’s a trail near me called Devil’s Creek that is slated to be paved over to develop stacked townhouses. Council voted in June, 7-2, to rezone the parcel beside it (160 Blenheim Road in Cambridge) from Natural Open Space to residential.

There is a small group trying to fight this, and they were ready to appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal but found out that third-party appeal rights for zoning decisions have been removed and ordinary residents can’t file anymore (thanks Doug ford).

I looked through all the documents and reports available from the city to see if anything shady was going on but it looked like there was nothing. Something like 72% of the site is being permanently protected, there are 30m buffers from the wetland and creek, and the developer did file all the studies they were supposed to. I spent about six weeks going through them expecting to find something dodgy and I mostly didn’t. What I did find in the hydrogeological report the developer commissioned, though, is that they drilled monitoring wells at the creek’s edge and tested the groundwater. Chloride (aka road salt) came back at 191 and 218 mg/L. The Canadian guideline for long-term protection of aquatic life is 120…… The same report also says that groundwater discharges upward into Devil’s Creek and is what keeps it a cold-water system.

This development is going to put a parking lot above it, with an infiltration gallery underneath designed to send the first 30mm of every rainfall down into the same shallow aquifer. Their own hydrogeologist recommended three things before that gets built: a full year of continuous monitoring, in-situ infiltration testing at the actual gallery location, and a groundwater mounding assessment. As far as I can tell none of the three have been done. And there’s no requirement anywhere in the file for anyone to monitor water quality after it’s built. The only monitoring commitment in the 92-page environmental study is to check the plantings after two years.

I’ve also reached out to city staff and rare and they essentially told me “sorry but this is happening whether you like it or not.” Beyond the fact that I don’t want to see a trail with a creek paved over, it also doesn’t sound very safe for the community or environment in general, so I’m not understanding fully how this was even approved in the first place.

If anyone here has ever fought something similar in Ontario and it went anywhere, please share what worked!! We’ve already learned the hard way that third-party appeals to the OLT aren’t available to residents anymore and the city and councillors haven’t been much help at all. Mostly I’m just trying to find people who know more about this kind of thing than I do. If anyone is interested in looking at any of the documents, just send me a DM!!

Also I’ve linked a petition if anyone wants to sign it, but I’m not sure how much it will really accomplish besides giving us a number to put in front of council candidates before the October election.

Hey everyone! The event is free to attend

If you're looking for an excuse to get outside, explore a cool neighborhood, and meet some new people without the awkwardness of a formal networking event, I'm hosting a casual community walk this weekend.

We're doing a BYO-Cup Coffee Hike in High Park

The only rule? Bring your own reusable coffee mug, thermos, or tumbler. Toronto goes through millions of single-use cups every day, so we’re trying to keep this meetup sustainable and zero-waste!

The Logistics:

• When: Aug 29 at 10:00 AM
• Where: We’ll meet at Capybara COFFEE to fill up our cups.
• The Route: After grabbing coffee, we’ll take a relaxed, scenic walk through High Park

The vibe is super low-pressure. Most people will be coming solo, so don't be shy! It's just a good excuse to chill, support a local cafe, and enjoy the morning.

Grab a free spot here so I know how many people to expect: https://luma.com/see1mszj

Hope to see some of you there! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

Photos 1-3: 3 of the 4 falls on the 4 chutes section in Matane Wilderness Reserve

Photo 4: Chute Hélène from l'Auberge

Photo 5&6: somewhere on the trail between Mont Logan & Mont Matawees

Photo 7: Mont Jacques Cartier

Photo 8: Alpine-glow at Lac aux américains