New Year Hike (Toronto)
In an incredibly satisfying “end of year wrap”-style, my first hike of 2021 linked up all of my previous hikes throughout the city. It was also probably my longest hike - about 11 kilometres (7 miles). I met a friend and colleague for today’s hike at Broadview Station. It snowed a bit last night so the city was looking beautiful, and temps were around freezing - not too cold!
We walked to Chester Hill Lookout, which I was a bit disappointed in - the lookout view is mostly of the DVP and other highways. From there, we walked up to Todmorden Mills Park.
We explored this area a bit and then continued along Pottery Road. I was intrigued by “Fantasy Farm”. The horses were only screaming horror movie to me. I’d like to come back and find out what a fantasy farm entails in the future - the walks in the area are chained off for now.
One of the underpasses we walked through had animal-themed pillars:
The Lower Don Trail ran through Pottery Road and we took a short detour up this trail to admire the river for a bit.
The designs used to encourage safe crossing were clever I felt - the middle section of the road has a path that forces a momentary pause in the middle before completing your crossing. The road also has a fun ecological pattern (blue waves) painted in the crossing sections, instead of the usual yellow lines.
After this detour, we followed Bayview down to Evergreen Brickworks. This was the “aha” moment for me, I hadn’t been able to see this trail (on the opposite side of the road as Brickworks) on my previous hikes. The trail was winding...AND it got us there!
The big pond (resevoir? body of water?) at Brickworks was frozen with a thick layer of ice that was beginning to get a bit slushy.
We passed through Evergreen’s South/West parking lot and followed a trail (neither of us knew where this would lead). There was a wide clearing followed by a very icy trail, and we were suddenly in Beaumont Park - another trail to follow!
We followed the Park Reserve Drive trail north through David A. Balfour Park. Here’s a cute hockey player I made the acquaintance of.
We exited David A. Balfour Park just below the Mount Pleasant Cemetery via a staircase a bit north of the Vale of Avoca (I’ll never get sick of over the top landmark names).
This was us after 3 hours of winter hiking!
