Rosedale Beltline Trail

Glen Bridge

It was a totally unexpected journey last week while walking through the Rosedale Beltline Recreational Trail.  It starts (or finishes depending where you are coming from) just south of the Mount Pleasant Cemetery and winds its way southeast through the David Balfour Park.  It then crosses over Mount Pleasant Road to the east and passes through Craigleigh Gardens.  This is the point where I began, around Bloor and Bayview Streets in Toronto.

Just a footnote: the Beltline trail continues northward along Bayview Avenue in through the Don Valley Brickworks Park traveling northeast through lovely Moore park until you meet up to the Mount Pleasant Cemetery once again.  This will be on another blog entry (Don Valley Brickworks Park).   

So to begin: from Craighleigh Gardens, we could see it was going to be a beautiful night and a whole two hours ahead to explore this part of the trail north along north of Castlefrank Road.

"Rosedale" is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Toronto.  It is also one of the oldest suburbs as well and home to Canada's richest and most famous citizens. 

House after house, lawn after manicured lawn, it was a pleasure to see and to photograph, where it can be said that one can not possibly take a poor photograph of these homes.  I kept my camera down for the most part so as to keep their anonymity, but sometimes it proved difficult, but this was to respect their privacy.

We saw an entrance to Craigleigh Gardens, and yet no flowers here in bloom.  On exiting the gardens, we passed "Milkman's Lane" and continued west along the Glen Bridge where we passed some of the most beautiful scenery ever expected in Toronto.  

Slight decline to forest floor

My grandmother, who traveled the world over twice, had told me from a very young age that of all the places on Earth, she thought Toronto was the most lovely because of the amount of green space it kept here.  Although I think all cities have their own unique treasures, I will agree with her that for a city of this size, it is pretty amazing that its parks still remain intact.

Crossing Glen Bridge

Once you cross over the to the other side of the bridge, there is an entrance to the Rosedale Valley below.  It is along the side of a hill, but it isn't too bad so we decided to go for it, and walk along the slow decline into the forest floor below.

Under Glen Bridge

Under the expanse of the overhead bridge and trees, it isn't long before all is forgotten 'up there' in and away from the noise of a city of a million faces, we're lost in this quiet setting.  Awesome! 


A bit further along, and I notice a waterfall.  Well, more like a large storm outflow from behind fences and rails. There were a couple of people there, and they soon moved aside for me to take some pictures.  
I didn't think the waters that emerged from there were from Yellow creek, and learned later it was from the Spadina storm trunk sewer instead.  It sounds much worse than it is, its really more like a tributary, you know a runoff from the roads and sidewalks and from the Castle Frank Brook.  Mind you, although there's no odour, don't be fooled as these waters are not safe to wade around in.  Not exactly sure what those two were doing there before we showed up.

Spadina Storm Trunk Sewer

Wild Daffodil

Continue, don't you stop now... you are almost done.  David Balfour Park is just across the street at Mount Pleasant Road, and you won't be disappointed.  Here you'll see rows of trees, some native and some foreign to me.  Crack Willow, Black Cherry and Ash, White Pine and Red Oak.  I was the one who didn't know botany right?  Well, I looked some up.  The common varieties I knew such as ferns, shrubs and creeping plants.

Trees at Balfour Park

Massive arches at St. Clair Viaduct

As you can tell by the photos it was getting far too dark to continue taking pictures, so I tried to get as good as a shot as I could of the St. Clair Viaduct, which is this hulking triple arch bridge.  Looking way way up, its an incredible sight and fully functional as this bridge carries St. Clair Avenue over the ravine connecting two communities (Deer and Moore Parks).

Approaching St. Clair Viaduct

Well, the two hours are pretty near up and it has become far too dark to photograph any scenery anymore.  It's too bad because Yellow Creek may have turned out much nicer than it did.  I won't even bother to share what pictures I did take of it. There really wasn't much in the way of water flow to the creek anyways.  Who knows, maybe you will have better luck when you go exploring the trails!  Bye for now :)

I thought it was interesting enough