2025.05.29 Update – Notification has been received that logging operations in North Barr have been completed but it may be a few days before the No Entry signs are removed to allow complete removal of the harvested logs and to give the County some time to clear up the trails. Please continue to comply with the direction on all posted signage.
We have received notification from Simcoe County Forestry that logging operations will start immediately in SCF North Barr Tract. The Barrie Ganaraska trail runs along the north edge of this tract along Horseshoe Valley Road and remains available, but there are many hiking trails inside the tract that will be unavailable while logging operations are active. Please comply with all signage about area closure and logging operations. An update will be provided when notice is received that logging operations are complete.
Over the years Bill Zeran has held various leadership positions within the GHTA and the Pine Ridge Hiking Club including:
Member of the GHTA Executive (2014-2018) as Recording Secretary and later on as Secretary-Treasurer
Member of the GHTA Risk Assessment Committee;
President of the Pine Ridge Club (2018-2012);
Hike Leader at Pine Ridge since 2014; and
Member of the Pine Ridge Maintenance Committee (2017-the present).
Through all of these commitments Bill has demonstrated a positive and friendly demeanour which endears him to those around him. Bill’s smile and sense of humour are contagious. The Vice-President at Pine Ridge during Bill’s time as President stated how much he valued Bill’s mentorship. With the ongoing support of his spouse Rita, Bill is also involved with a number of other volunteer programs especially within their local church community. Bill’s family roots are steeped in service to others.
Pine Ridge Club representatives Cynthia Warnand Stan Muldoon receiving Bill’s plaque in his absence.
Congratulations and thank you Bill! We couldn’t have done it without you.
We are highly appreciative of the contributions Simone Latham has made to the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association Inc. as our Treasurer since 2018, a valued member of our GHTA Executive, as a Certified Hike Leader for the Midland club, and as a great friend.
Simone joined the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association Inc. in 2011, and in 2012 soon after encouraged a team of 4 GHTA members to walk the 100 km Oxfam event in 48 hours. It was a very hot weekend, but we all made it in 42 hours, and only lost several toe nails in the process. However, she really enjoyed hiking and became a great hike leader.
As a member of the GHTA Executive, her skills and past experience with other not for profit and charitable boards, as well as with procedures and policies, helped us streamline & automate our GHTA processing for payments, bookkeeping, expense reimbursements, etransfers and many other administrative changes. We also thank her for the amount of time she gave us to find a suitable replacement, and get our processes documented and streamlined to pass on to our new Treasurer.
Simone Latham receiving 2025 Volunteer of the Year
We wish her all the best in her retirement as treasurer from the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association Inc, and will miss her as a great team player and friend.
Original Posting Dated 2024.08.04 – SCF Logging Affects Barrie Trail.
Logging in SCF Smith Tract has resulted in the temporary closure of the Barrie Club Bear’s Creek Sidetrail, located just north of Midhurst where Gill Road crosses the railway tracks (KM 24.9 on the Barrie trail). The main Barrie trail is unaffected and remains open. Please obey all posted signs in the area and avoid hiking this side trail until further notice.
For those that hike in the Midhurst area please note that access to the Ganaraska hiking trail at the Belmont\Doran Rd. intersection is temporarily closed due to severe washout. A map to an alternate route (Belmont Rd to Finlay Mill Rd. to Willow Creek) along the Hunter Russell Nature trail to meet up with the GHT is posted at the closure site. From the Midhurst Community Centre one can also walk along Finlay Mill Rd. to Willow Creek where the detour begins.
A portion of the Oro-Medonte trail in Copeland Forest will be temporarily closed due to spring seasonal wet conditions. The trail section is just north of the Oro-Medonte and Barrie trail junction near sign post 5 and continues north to sign post 4 – approximately 1 km in length. There is an alternate trail that can be used to the east of the Oro-Medonte trail (see attached map).
Signs will be installed at the end points of the closed section (sample attached). Please do not try to use the closed section – walking around the wet sections on the trail can cause damage to environmentally sensitive areas in the forest. We are lucky to have access to the Copeland Forest trail system so let’s do our part to make our trail system sustainable.
There will be a follow-on notice when the trail is re-opened.
On May 11, 2024 (new date) lace up those hiking boots and join us for the historic “I Closed the Gap” Hike along the beautiful Ganaraska Hiking Trail through Midland, Penetanguishene and Tiny. This project has been over 10 years in the making. Get ready to explore the beautiful Georgian Bay shoreline and various forest trails, breathe in the fresh air, and challenge yourself on this scenic trail. For more details and to register click here.
Many hikers collect badges to show their achievements: where and how far they have hiked, etc. The Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association also offers a series of badges, ranging from section badges for the various club section End-to-Ends, as well as for the overall 500km Ganaraska Hiking Trail End-to-End. Our newest badges show that the hiker has done 50, 100 or 200 hikes of at least 1 hour in a calendar year. See Badges – Ganaraska Hiking Trail
The 100 hikes badge launched in 2021, we added the 50 and 200 hikes badges in 2022, and we are considering if we should add a 150 and 250 hikes badges, as this challenge of setting a personal goal, seems to have taken off in a big way.
If you follow the postings on the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Group in Facebook, you will see reports of hikers’ progress towards their personal goal. We congratulate all those who set goals for 2023 and achieved them and we would like to encourage other hikers to set a goal, whether it is an End-to-End Badge or a number of hikes badge, or any other badge. The benefits are enormous, not only for your own physical and mental health, your sense of accomplishment but you will also be visiting gorgeous trails, enjoy fantastic landscapes, see or hear nature at its best, and meet many like minded hikers along the way.
One such hiker is Lilla Fodor. She is a Ganaraska Hiking Trail member, but her home club is the Beaver Valley Bruce Trail Club. She is an avid badge collector, which is sometimes referred to as a badge hound as is evidenced in the pictures below. Here is Lilla’s story about her badge collection.
The first badge I earned was the Beaver Valley BT Beaver Bites (side trails) badge in 2018 when I retired. It started when we moved to the Beaver Valley, I wanted to familiarize myself with the Bruce Trail in the area and I think I became a bit addicted. My goal became to hike an end to end and then the side trails earning the badges along the way.
The next trail I hiked end to end was the Ganaraska during Covid when we were able to move around. It gave me new focus during a difficult time and as a result the Ganaraska holds a special place for me so I’ve kept up my membership.
Next, I started to hike some of the Bruce Trail challenge hikes and the BT sections over and over, just to challenge myself and earn more pretty badges. Badges eventually became a great incentive to explore other trails and areas I’d never think to hike, such as Oxford and Woolwich Counties.
I don’t officially belong to any other hiking club besides the Bruce and Ganaraska, although when I hike a Club’s trails, I always make a donation beyond the cost of the badge or join the Club for that year so I can contribute by paying my way that year.
The most difficult badge to get, was the BT Peninsula Club’s 100 Birder Badge. I know little about birds, I like them well enough and learned a lot, but that one took more patience than I have and a lot of sitting and listening, I prefer just hoofing along a trail.
Physically the toughest and longest was the Dufferin Hi-Land Bruce Trail Club’s One Day Badge where I hiked approximately 56kms in one go. My favourite one was probably the Caledon Hills BT Club’s Loppet Badge because I got to cross country ski the trail to earn that one, combining the trail with another favourite activity, and I got to help two other hikers earn that one. On others I learned about ferns, wineries, Canadian history, and even the history of the Welland Canal system.
In the past I regularly hiked close to home in Caledon Hills for over 20 years before discovering badges, but the fun thing about badge collecting for me has become the incentive to hike in different areas, on different trails, discover something new, or to challenge myself to different terrains and longer distances, and to just keep getting out there, moving and discovering.
Oh, and I’ve also met some great people along the way, forming some wonderful friendships in the hiking community.
By Lilla Fodor
We encourage all hikers to set personal goals for 2024, and beyond. Beside the Ganaraska Hiking Trail badges, note that Hike Ontario also offers some long-distance hiking badges Hike Ontario Long Distance Hiker Awards/, and the National Hiking Trail just launched the National Hiker Award National Hiker Award
For those of you who are setting a 50/100/200 goal, here is a simple spreadsheet to keep track of your progress.
membership grew from an average of 500-600 in previous years to over 700
donations are coming in stronger then ever… some as small as $25, or more
after some difficult Covid years, volunteers have been working hard to keep our beloved Ganaraska Hiking Trail open for all to enjoy, in a safe manner
volunteers came forward to fill in the vacancies of Mapping Coordinator, Newsletter Editor and Web Content Manager. Thank you Victor Tolgyessy, Lana Johnson and Campbell Britton for stepping up to these roles.
the Indigenous Engagement Committee has developed 2 Land Acknowledgements, and designed a sign for posting on the trail
the Risk Management Committee has developed new trail standards and inspections procedures
and lastly, the GHTA has implemented Microsoft 365 to store all our important documents on an on-line platform and we are now employing Outlook for GHTA communications. All volunteer roles in the GHTA have been or will be provided with generic email addresses such as president@ghta.ca, at the same time simplifying the earlier email addresses which were more complicated.
The Trail:
the Midland club has made huge progress on closing the gap between the Midland and Tiny sections of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail, and is planning to officially open this new 17 km section on Saturday April 13, 2024. Mark your calendars!
new maps of all sections were developed and a beautiful wall map of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail will be launched shortly (Thank you Victor!)
Larry, Frieda, Linda P, Evelyn, Roxanne, Eveline, Penny, Shirley, Barb, Mary, Linda G – Gap between Midland and Tiny
The Achievements:
we celebrated the first ‘gold badge” receiver: Bob Wilson for being a GHTA member for 50 years, and having filled volunteer roles of club president, association president, hike leader extraordinaire and trail maintenance steward and coordinator.
our 50/100/200 hikes in 1 year challenge and badges have been extremely successful and have promoted the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association even outside the GHTA membership, with many enjoying the challenge of setting themselves a goal of completing 50, or 100, or 200 and even 250 hikes in a year, and enjoying the physical and mental benefits of hiking
In closing, I would like to:
thank all volunteers who have stepped forward to help the GHTA, whether it is with our admin, our finances, our mapping, our trail conditions, etc.
congratulate all those who have completed section hikes, and End to End hikes of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail
congratulate all who achieved their 50/100/200 badges… and completed even more hikes than 200
And finally, I wish you all a happy, healthy, peaceful 2024, with lots of great hiking adventures throughout the year, on the Ganaraska Hiking Trail and beyond!
Happy hiking Frieda Baldwin President Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association Inc. Getting outside is good for your inside!
