#trcaparks

We see it… it’s on the horizon. The May long weekend, it’s almost here!  Here’s a list of activities you can do at TRCA parks and facilities this long weekend:

Get daring and explore the forest canopy on Bruce’s Mill and Heart Lake’s Treetop Trekking courses

Spend a night under the stars at Albion Hills, Glen Rouge or Indian Line Campground

Fish the weekend away at Glen Haffy or Heart Lake Conservation Areas. 

Fun fact: Ponds at Glen Haffy and Heart Lake are stocked with rainbow trout raised at the Glen Haffy fish hatchery.

Take a swing at Bathurst Glen Golf Course This year, Bathurst Glen has a new Family Course, perfect for golfers of all skill sets!

Enter a world of fairytale fun at Black Creek Pioneer Village’s Pirates and Princesses event!

Enjoy a Sunday morning bird walk through Tommy Thompson Park

Enjoy a picnic in the great outdoors at any one of TRCA’s conservation areas

Explore the wetlands at the Kortright Centre for Conservation

Tear up the trails on over 40 km of mountain bike trails at Albion Hills Conservation Area

 Get your paddle on at Albion Hills and Heart Lake Conservation Areas

In June, I went geocaching with a group of members from the Golden Horseshoe Monthly Geocaching Club at Kortright.

I had a blast. We found numerous well-hidden geocaches around the forest. The group made the modern-day treasure hunting look like a piece of cake. 

Ever since that experience, I’ve been eager to try geocaching again. I figured since I’d already gotten guidance from (what I consider to be) geocaching experts, I was ready to go at it alone. So I purchased the Geocaching App, eager to find my first treasure solo. The Geocaching app is straight-forward. It shows you geocaches in the area, and from there, you can choose which one you’d like to seek out.

When you choose which geocache suits your fancy, you press “Navigate to Geocache,” and a GPS map shows you where you are located, and the location of the geocache. 

I decided I’d try for a cache that showed up in Boyd Conservation Area.

“Easy” I thought. “You just wander towards the geocache until your blue dot is RIGHT beside the green end-point. I’ll find this thing in minutes!”

Talk about overestimating my abilities. My first issue arose when I realized that I have the worse sense of direction EVER. I wandered around Boyd in confusion for quite some time, unsure of which way was West, North, East or South, just hoping the blue dot would move closer to the endpoint. I felt like the map was playing tricks on me. “I swore this was the right way!” I’d exclaim at my iPhone, as the blue dot started slowly drifting away from the geocache. And after every wrong turn, I’d try to understand my surroundings, and head off in a different direction, desperate to find the cache. Soon, I had made it to the back of the conservation area, where the Humber River flows and a picnic shelter sits.

It’s in this area of the park that my blue dot started to FINALLY inch closer to the green mark. I was going in THE RIGHT DIRECTION! A chorus of hallelujah played in my head. Excitement overtook my feelings of confusion. I made it! So I walked along the riverside, in hopes that maybe the cache was hidden by the water. I noticed a bridge not far in the distance and thought – duh! – the cache is called “K&J’s Old Bridge Cache,” so it must be over there!

Eagerly, I made my way towards the trail that set off in the direction of the bridge, hopped over a large log from a fallen tree, and determinedly headed towards the bridge.

Campers, unite!

This past weekend, several families and couples learned how to “rough -it” Canadian style at Glen Rouge Campground. These first-time campers were taught how to camp by Parks Canada and Mountain Equipment Co-Op employees at the Learn to Camp event.

Let me say, these campers were truly immersed in the camping experience. Despite several spurts of rain pelleting the ground, tents and campers, camping spirits remained high, regardless.

The campers were all smiles, heading from demonstration to demonstration, dodging the rain, and filling their brains with valuable camping knowledge. This included information like the various foods that can be cooked while camping (that aren’t hot dogs), how to mountain bike, and forest safety.

Within each demonstration, eager-eyed campers would press for information. “Where can you buy that stove?” asked one, impressed with the camping-friendly pizzas the cooking-demonstrator created.  “Why don’t you want to stand near the tallest tree if you’re lost?” another asked the safety demonstrator. The knowledge shared was valuable, and campers were extremely receptive. 

But I must say, the best part of the day was the end of it.  When everybody’s stomach was filled with a delicious BBQ dinner, and the evening rolled in, YMCA leaders took over the campsite to play games with the kids. High-pitched screeches and giggles became the soundtrack of the evening, as the little ones engaged in some friendly competition, running around the campground.

But soon the sunshine started to dwindle, and playtime was no longer. Instead, the glow on the ground took the place of the sun, as campfires were set-up. The campers cozied up, and several campfire activities took place, turning Glen Rouge into a truly Canadian setting.  Couples relaxed, enjoying the calming atmosphere of the wilderness, while kids laughed and smiled, enjoying the activities of the outdoors, like Aboriginal stories, and campfire songs and sing-alongs.