Hiking Crown Land Near Toronto

We had unexpectedly perfect weather for this weekend's hike. It's a truly unique location that looks to be the closest crown land to Toronto. The area is well cared for by volunteers and offers a few loops that you can chain together into an 11km hike. This land was originally set aside by the government for various purposes, such as conservation, recreation, and resource extraction. Today, it's a beautiful walk that takes you along a meandering river, through picturesque forests and over then along an abandoned railway line.

The temperature was hovering around zero but with the first sun in several weeks, it felt unusually warm. The recent snow melt had refrozen however so the trails were completely covered in ice. Wilderness Union provides ice-spikes for all of our members so for us, it was pretty easy going but we saw more than a few people sliding along and getting dragged by their dogs.

About half way in, we stopped for lunch over a look-out and made fresh Aeropress coffee from water we collected then purified from the nearby stream.

The return hike took us away from the river and up onto the disused railway line that used to run through the area for a straight shot back into the forest. We ended up in what used to be a commercial nursery but now was just an incredibly peaceful trail. When we thought we'd more or less made it back, we found no bridge where the river crossing was meant to be. We spotted a downed tree that had fallen across the river that somebody had obviously planned to create a path across. One by one, we carefully made our crossing, all getting to the other side dry having justified the word adventure in the outdoor adventure club.

Getting back to the car, we had one final surprise as one of our members had brought along some incredible doughnuts from Daddio's in Missisauga. We soaked up the sun as a group of new friends noshing and reliving the hike before we returned to Toronto.

You might be wondering where exactly we went. Our adventures are mostly places that you wouldn't know about without a local showing you the way, places with very few other hikers around and perfect for getting away from civilization. To try and maintain what makes them special, we don't publicly publish the locations of more sensitive areas. If you join us, we share the precise locations in advance of each adventure.