Back on the Beltline

Back on October 2, 2018, I wrote a post about walking the Beltline Trail, where we started at Yonge St. and walked north on this trail which is on an old railway bed. Today we walked another section of the Beltline trail, this time from the same start location but walking south to explore a section of the trail that was really a vastly different experience from the previous walk. 

A unique grave marker

Back in 2018, we were staying in our son’s condo in Midtown,  just a short walk from the trail, but our current condo is downtown so we took the subway up Yonge St. to Midtown and walked the trail back down towards our new location. 

The first part of the walk was obviously on the old rail-bed, but then the trail turns and detours through the large Mount Pleasant Cemetery and then down into the Moore park Ravine, so I do not think this section of the trail continues to directly follow the route of the old railway. Those old locomotives would have struggled to get up and down from the deep ravine. 

Down under the city

The trail itself is really pleasant, as you drop down into the ravine and the ever present skyscrapers of the big city disappear into nature. I recall back in the 70’s when I was here on a training course being amazed at these beautiful forested trails running through the city and they continue to provide a serene walking experience within Canada’s largest, busiest city. Walking in the winter means that the trees are mostly leafless, so we do see some huge houses  of wealthy Torontonians bordering the ravines but in other seasons the city is mostly blocked out. 

This section of the trail follows the path of the stream that carved out the ravine and eventually joins the Don River which flows into Lake Ontario. On the way it passes the Evergreen Brickworks where I suspect the bricks that were used to construct so many of the beautiful old houses in Toronto were made. This derelict factory is now a multi-purpose community site featuring a museum, a park and a community market. 

The Brickworks

You can continue walking trails all the way down along the Don river to Lake Ontario but we have already done that hike, so after we passed the Brickworks we climbed up out of the ravine on a trail we had to share with a city racoon, in time to, as experienced Toronto Transit commuters we confidently caught a bus that dropped us off a block from the condo. A bit more of Toronto explored.

A well maintained Trail (and "No Winter Maintenance")

Trailside Art

One of the bridges spanning the ravine