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Thanks goes to the Bruce Trail Association and their many volunteers for the outstanding job they do in acquiring, protecting and maintaining the Bruce Trail.
I hope you find this site helpful in planning your hikes in the Toronto area and Southern Ontario. Constructive criticism is very welcome. Recently added features include: a hikers photo album where we can post your favourite hiking photos, a links page with recommended sites and urban walks. Also included are the tutorials, ecology items, hiking essentials listings, QwikFind sections and high quality photo galleries. New in Spring 2004 are driving time maps from where you live to the hike starting point, latitude and longitude coordinates for all hike and walk starting points, a hike locator map showing the entire southern half of the Bruce Trail with hike locations pinpointed, new style Trail Maps with waypoint information to guide you better along the correct path, along with new walks and hikes. Your contributions (and yes, even donations to help support the site) are most welcome. New in 2005 are hikes further afield, more detailed trail maps, waypoint-to-waypoint hike descriptions and waterfalls video clips along with a complete redesign of the look of torontohiking.com. We hope you enjoy the new features.
Special thanks goes to John Boydell for his help in scouting out the hikes and aiding in the acquisition of data and colour.
Here are some of the features included in our hiking resources.
Photos: The photos are all taken using a Canon Powershot G1 (3.3 Megapixels) at the highest resolution (2048x1556). They are reduced to 550x 450, 80% quality for the website and even smaller for the thumbnail versions.
Photos taken in 2003+ are by the Canon Powershot G3 (4.0 MP). and Canon Powershot 2S IS.
Photo galleries: These are done by BreezeBrowser and the Costa Rica and other travel albums are done using “Gallery” Newer photo albums (L25 and up) are done in Jalbum with slideshow capabilities and larger image sizes. The Firefox browser displays the thumbnails correctly in full colour while IE7 displays black & white thumbnails that show colour on mouseover. All full size images are in full colour in both browsers.
Trail Maps: To produce the new Trail Maps (2005+), the routes are tracked on a Garmin GPS60CSx and edited in MapSource for map detail. The Trail Maps are then exported to Photoshop for final additions of waypoint descriptions, additional labelling and legend. All hikes will be upgraded using this method to provide superior map information in time.
Road maps are now all done using links to Google maps where you can obtain driving instructions, best route to trailhead and driving time and distance. Accordingly the previous driving time maps are no longer available.
Graphics and banners are done in Fireworks and Photoshop
Google Topograhic maps are produced using Google Earth Plus for higher resolution than the free version.
Video Clips are made using Windows Movie Maker 2
Waypoint-to-Waypoint hike descriptions: Data is recorded on a waypoint data sheet during the hike along with a digital voice recording of relevant trail features. The individual voice segments (sometimes up to 70) are then typed into the site trail Waypoint-to-Waypoint description tables. All hikes will be updated to this more detailed system of trail description. Hikes L15 and up use this new system while earlier hikes will eventually get converted.
Length of Hike: This is an approximate estimate of the hike length in km.
Rating: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced.
Beginner -distances up to 10 km and pace of 3 km/h with stops every 15-20 minutes
Intermediate: distances up to 15 km with a pace of 3-4 km and stops every 20-30 min
Advanced: distances greater than 15 km with a pace of 4 km (less if very hilly).
It should be noted than many experienced and fit hikers often cover 20 km or more at a pace of 5 km/h and up.
Time: based on length of hike and pace of 3 km/h
Terrain: A general description of the type of terrain.
Directions: How to get to the hike starting point by car from the Toronto area.
The Site: Notes any special features or items of historical significance concerning the site.
The Hike: Detailed instructions on the route to follow with note of any special features along the way. Of course you do not have to follow the arrow directions on the pdf maps and you may alter the length of the hikes but these are my recommendations.
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