Hiking in Southern Ontario

These are the main hikes of torontohiking.com. All of the hikes listed below are either “loop” or "linear" hikes.

Loop hikes begin and end at the same point meaning you can park, do the hike and return to your car at the point where you started. You don’t have to walk along the trail for a distance and then turn around and come back to the starting point. Instead there are at least one or more loops so that you are crossing new country as you walk. Sometimes there are some short common sections between loops.

Linear hikes begin at one point and end further along the trail at another point. One way to do a linear hike is by car jockeying with a friend using two cars. To do this, park one car at the end and drive the other car to the start of the linear point-to-point trail. When you reach the end of the hike, drive back to the start. Another alternative is the linear return” in which you walk from one point to another and then return along the same trail or by using an alternate road route for the return.

Waypoint trail guides give point-to-point descriptions along the trail along with the hiking distance in metres following the trail from waypoint to waypoint. They point out major intersections and turns in the trail to follow the selected route. Road crossings and intersections with side trails are all noted in the description. We also try to give a bit of the flavour of the hike by descibing the scenery and wildlife encounters we had along the trial with any special features of note.

Rivers and lakes encountered or requiring crossing are named along with any waterfalls on the route. In addition, difficult sections of the trail are described.

In order to help you select hikes in a particular area, we have grouped the hikes in four ways.

• By location
• Easy, shorter hikes
• Challenging hikes
• Long hikes