Distance hiked: 4.0km
Location: Rouge National Urban Park, Ontario
Date: February 9, 2020

The Rouge National Urban Park has become one of my regular areas to hike ever since I started the 52 Hike Challenge back in January. It is the largest urban park in North America and features a number of trails that weave their way through forests, meadows and marshes. Sure, being in such close proximity to one of the largest cities in Canada does have its drawbacks (the hydro lines are a bit of an eyesore and you can still hear the hum from the neighbouring highway), but it is located close to home, which is super convenient.

We headed out early in the morning (so we didn’t have to deal with traffic) for a short hike along the Orchard Trail (4.0km roundtrip). There are two trailheads for the Orchard Trail: the north trailhead at the bottom of Zoo Road (which also leads to the nearby Toronto Zoo) and the south trailhead along Twyn Rivers Drive. We started at the south trailhead as part of the road that leads to the north trailhead is closed off during the winter (something we discovered when we first visited Rouge National Urban Park in January). To my delight, it snowed pretty heavily for the first half of the hike, making everything seem more magical.

By the time we reached the end of the trail, it had stopped snowing and the clouds were starting to clear up a bit. We turned around and hiked the same way back to the car.

We wrapped up our hike at around 9:15a.m and drove back home. It was a perfect way to start the day. And because Rouge National Urban Park is so close by, we still had most of the day to complete chores around the house and get ready for the next week.

L

My progress on the 52 Hike Challenge can be found here