A place for reflection, peace, tranquility, friendship, stress relief and a return to nature.
All Simcoe County Forest logging operations affecting the Orillia Section of the Ganaraska Trail – including the Breedon Tract and Rathburn Tract – have been completed. Also all those logging operations in the many Simcoe Country Forest Tracts in the Bass Lake Side Road East and Line 6 – 7 – 8 areas are completed.
Carol Strickland, President, Orillia Club of the GHTA Inc.
Check out the changes to the Merchandise Order Form. You can now follow an electronic process and pay for badges by e-transfer.
Thank you Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association Treasurer for making this possible.
A printable Wall Map of the complete Ganaraska Trail is now available. Approximately 83cm x 58cm it’s best printed on photo paper at a print shop. There are two versions Complete GHTA Map without sections and Complete GHTA Map with sections.
For detailed printing instructions 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.
Happy Hiking,
Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association Inc.
Getting outside is good for your inside
2023 The Year in Review
A year of growth and progress:
The Trail:
The Achievements:
In closing, I would like to:
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!
Regarding the overhanging branches about 1/2 km west from the parking lot at 1832 Line 8 Oro-Medonte, one has been pulled down, and the other has been bypassed by a short loop around the overhanging branch. The trail is “obstructed” from both sides of the hazard, and a semi-circular trail marked with pink ribbons guides hikers around the hazard. We hope that winter will bring the overhanging brach down, but for the meantime, hikers should use the re-route.
Frieda Baldwin, President of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association received the Award of Excellence during the Hike Ontario Annual Summit in London, Ontario, on September 23, 2023. For the complete article visit Hike Ontario Award of Excellence 2023.
The Breedon Tract of the Simcoe County Forest is closed due to logging. This affects the Orillia Section between Lines 9 and 8, the most easterly half. Attached is an image showing the (2-3 year old) re-route of the Ganaraska Trail from Line 10 south to Old Barrie Road, along Old Barrie Road and north along Line 9 to the entrance to the Breedon Tract. The Ganaraska Trail is shown in pink, and the Red Cross-hatches indicate active logging operations as per the Simcoe County Forest. This map also takes in the Arbour Tract as noted on Nov. 2, 2023. We have not heard of re-opening of the Arbour Tract as of today.
As soon as we hear of a change in the status we will update on Trail Changes.
A recent local news report announced that work has begun to remove railway ties and rails on the abandoned railway line between Stayner and Angus as a first step in the conversion of this corridor to a recreational rail trail. The work to remove the ties and rails is expected to be complete mid-December this year, but the total conversion project will last until late 2025.
Starting immediately, sections of the Mad River Club trail that follow the rail line will be inaccessible where work crews are active. Signs will be posted preventing access to work zones and in some situations there will be a ‘watch person’ to prevent access.
As the work will be intermittent and section-by-section this stretch of the Ganaraska trail will not be closed but all hikers are advised to follow the instructions of all posted signs and avoid areas where work crews are active. Also, hiking this section of the Mad River Club trail is not required to earn a Ganaraska End-to-End badge for the foreseeable future.
Big surprise this morning on our Wednesday morning hike, when Midland Ganaraska Hiking Club president Larry Piitz had the notion that we should hike in the Thompson Forest leading to the Tiny Trail (also called Bridges Trail and part of the Trans Canada Trail). Good thing we did as we discovered the beautiful set of stairs built by Tiny Township at our request and leading from the top of the cliff down to the Tiny Trail. 39 steps!!!
This will become part of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail, as we close the gap between the Midland and Tiny sections of the trail…. hopefully before year end. Just some minor loose ends still to get approved.
This will add another 16 km approximately to the Midland section of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail.
