Highland Creek Trail (and Colonel Danforth Park)

  The Highland Creek Trail is a paved trail that starts from Old Kingston Road and Highland Creek and ends at the shores of Lake Ontario then along the bluffs and into East Point Park.  

The trail follows through Colonel Danforth Park along Highland Creek where there is some of the most gorgeous scenery in the city.

Another hidden gem, I've never seen before and has become one of my favorite parks in the east end.  You will be amazed by the tall, aged-old cedar trees, oaks, maples and willows everywhere.  

You are never far from the Highland creek as it basically follows the trail on the right.  

The Highland creek river bed has a rocky bottom and water channel on the far side which provides a watershed for most of the central part of the city.


I would imagine Colonel Danforth park is stunning in the fall.  Incidentally, "Colonel" Danforth was named after Asa Danforth, who was an American and was commissioned by the Government of Upper Canada over 200 years ago to build a road from King Street east to the Trent river.  Asa was never a "Colonel" but he was a hard driving task master as noted by his workmen, so it is speculated, this title was given to him because of his military style of commands on his men. 


The park has the standard picnic tables with barbecues and washrooms opened in the summer.  Plenty of people come here to try their luck on casting out a line or two catching fish in the Highland creek.  Several species are native including trout, carp and bass.  Its a meandering river which like most rivers in Toronto, travel through a glacial ravine formed after the last Ice Age. 

As you leave the Colonel Danforth Park behind, you'll notice some wild fields before and some overhead 'silver-lining' pipe structures which form the mechanics of the watershed.  Finally up ahead a bridge which will take you directly south to the beaches of Lake Ontario.  

The waters shoreline is a mixture of sand and pebbles making it relatively comfortable on your toes as you wade in the waters, which I certainly did with the humidity at almost 100%.   You'll notice lots of driftwood along the shores as well.

At this point you can go east to the Port Union Trail or west through East Point Park.  That was an awesome experience, and as well a missing link from my trail list in the east.  


Nature is found all around us in any city and if you can be enjoyed by everyone so if there's no money in the bank or gas in the car, you don't need to travel far to see the same thing you'll enjoy in your own back yard if you look deep enough.

Cruickshank Park

 Cruickshank Park (located west of Weston Road, North of Lawrence Ave West in Toronto) has some really breathtaking weeping willows (my fave tree ever). They pave the path as well as line the creek banks where the Humber flows. Heading north on the trail you'll end up right about well...where the trail ends (and I'm thinking oh yah this is when it starts getting interesting?)

Enter the new Phase of the Mid Humber Trail Project.  This will be a 600 metre extension which will link up the north end of the Humber Trail (currently at Cruickshank Park) to the Mallaby Park Steps.  If you're on a bike, this would seem the best place to stop right at the foot of a 300 step incline.  (Geez I really hate ascending stairs)

Since the construction workers will simply apply the 3.5 metre wide pavement over the existing dirt path, you are looking at a 4-6 week endeavoured project.  
 

Once you come to the top of the stairs you are just smack dab in the centre of a construction zone, and it just baffles me that I can go from the depth of a quiet, green forest to a noisy sea of cement and sirens in a matter of minutes.  For a moment there I want to turn right back around.  The Phase 2 plan of the extension of the trail will most likely take it from Mallaby Park to Fairglen where the trail continues.  This will be nice once finished as it'll alleviate the outside world and keep you down in the Humber Valley a little longer.
 
I couldn't believe the white fluff that covered most of the trail north of Fairglen Avenue.  It was everywhere, and felt bad for allergic sufferers during this type of cottonwood looking like a snowstorm in June.  You can expect this kind of pollen to be falling off of trees into the air in early spring and summer.  What I was surprised to find out is by the time you see this white fluffy residue, it is left over from the seed production process, and this doesn't contain any pollen BUT...it does contain some high levels of fungal spore for those people sensitive to that.  
 
Myself I thought Cruickshank was nice and large, but really nothing that really stood out other than maybe the 'bell' (circa 1967) erected by the Weston Horticultural society, and of course...the weeping willow trees.

Happy Canada Day!

Falling Star (my fave)

Hi All!

I've been quite busy for the last three weeks as Trustee of an Estate.  There isn't much time for play, but thanks for the emails and will be back on the trails soon enough!

Here's a few of Canada Day's Fireworks. 

Do you see a flowerpot? I Do!!

The King's Mill and The Humber Marshes

common parking lot birds, the cute Kildeer

King's Mill Park is located just south of the Old Mill Subway Station in Toronto (if you are getting there by Toronto Transit) or east of Bloor W and Islington by car (Vehicles can enter at Humber Valley Drive, north of Riverwood Parkway or from Old Mill Rd).   If you are biking it, you can travel through the park on the beloved Tommy Thompson Trail.  

It's a little over a half a km walk so I decided to cover a longer stretch in this post, from our walk from Kings Mill to the South Humber Park which is is over a 2 kilometre walk.  It that takes you through large open and leveled park lands which I recognize to be a similar characteristic all over Etobicoke.  

...and some pretty interesting pieces of history as well.  One thing I learned was that most of what is Kings Mill Park is a land fill site from the early 50's.  

this kildeer tried to run away, but I still caught him

After you pass the Toronto Humber Yacht Club, which was established in 1956, there's a strange looking flying-saucer like structure off into the distance.  It kind of reminded me of those old-fashioned drive-in restaurants from the 50's, but as it turns out it was nothing more than a neglected and vandalized public washroom. 

Abandoned flying saucer building

clockwise: hidden bike trails, and the flying-saucer

Historically speaking, this large open park was once the site of the King's Mill and Reserve, established by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe in 1793 as Etobicoke's first industry. In 1821, Thomas Fisher leased the King's Mill, just below the Old Mill site, where he built his home.

The Humber River and Marshes, as you may know is the largest one in Toronto and is a crucial corridor for migratory song birds and monarch butterflies.

The Humber River has over 60 different species including some sports fish like trout, pike and salmon.  The Humber Marshes are one of the few remaining river mouth marshes in Toronto and provide a breeding habitat for ducks, turtles and fish.  Humber River’s importance is recognized now by its designation in 1999 as a Canadian Heritage River.

Overall an easy walk through some pretty areas just before you reach the shores of Lake Ontario at the South Humber Park, which is next.

I wanted to mention something about the Kildeer, because I posted it a couple of times here.  They are actually very common shorebirds that you can see without ever having to go to the beach...you can spot them often on lawns or golf courses and football fields and even parking lots! They are so cute and scamper hurriedly in jolts stopping now and then to check their progress.  Their calls are high-pitched can be heard often even at night when the are in flight.

Raymore Park (feat Hurricane Hazel)

Original footbridge starting network of trails in 1995

Boulder relocated from 'Hazel's aftermath

Newspaper captions pasted on fallen cement block

Raymore Drive and the surrounding parkland of the Humber River valley was one of the areas of Toronto hit the hardest in the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel, over sixty years ago.  The Hurricane started in the afternoon of October 5, 1954 just off the island of Grenada.  Its winds were already peaking over 160 km per hour shifting east through the Caribbean islands up through the Carolinas and heading towards the mid Altantic states and finally into Canada.


The hurricane left a path of destruction killing over a thousand people in Haiti, and destroying homes and properties and six more lives in the Bahamas.  For nine straight days the storm traveled at an alarming forward speed of over 45 km per hour, the winds picking up to 250 destroying the entire town of Garden City, South Carolina. 

Cement dropped from strong winds

Twelve hours after leaving South Carolina it forged ahead with extreme speed passing Washington D.C. , into Pennsylvania and New York and up into Southern Ontario with a fury on October 15, 1954, sending a wall of water 7 metres high down the Humber River Valley.

The damage reached over 1.5 billion with over 100 lost lives in Ontario, including firemen and other rescue workers (there's a plaque in Home Smith Park commemorating them)  In the aftermath, Toronto was left with massive flooding which left over 1,800 families homeless and 4,000 and over 80 people lost their lives in Ontario .  One of the streets which had been completely washed away was Raymore Drive.   

'my heart' web :)

Today there is scattered evidence of the force of winds and power of the Hurricane Hazel in Toronto.  Raymore Park for one has a few large pieces of cement that was picked up and transported by the gale.  It baffles the mind to imagine a wind being that powerful.  In all there was over 300 million tons of water that had fallen during Hurricane Hazel leaving it one of the worst Hurricanes in history.


Raymore Park was the site of another distillery and a number of mills in Toronto which used the Humber river as a viable natural resource.  In the 1850's the land was owned by the Scarlett family up until '57 when a local businessman proposed to build a canal four metres deep and fourty wide, with sixty four double locks to link Lake Onatrio and Georgian Bay through Lake Simcoe.  Cutting through Raymore Park, the canal route followed the Humber River Valley.  It was never completed even though it cost over $35million.

On a positive note, the province of Ontario stepped in to build a new footbridge in 1995 completing the Humber Trail and greenway system which we all enjoy today.  The footbridge called, The Raymore Bridge was the start of Toronto's goal for a network of regional trails in Toronto and throughout Ontario and beyond.