Saturday Sept 7 9 am Birding at Hullett Marsh Level 1, Easy pace 1.5 hours Saturday Sept 14 9 am Maitland Trail: River Line to Cherrydale Road Level 3, Moderately fast pace, 4-5 hoursContinue reading
Trail Talk 81 August 28th 2019
Sometimes errors occur between my submission and printing. In Trail talk 79 the error was mine, the lengths of the mulberries, of course, should be in inches not feet! Hard to imagine a mulberry overContinue reading
August Hikes
Sunday Aug 4 8 am Firemen’s Breakfast and Maitland Woods Walk Level 1, Easy pace 45 minutes Saturday Aug 17 1pm River Walk at the Falls Reserve Level 1, Leisurely Pace, 3 hoursContinue reading
Trail Talk 64 May 1 2019
The Featured trail this week is the Goderich to Auburn Rail Trail (G.A.R.T.) (13A in the Huron County Hiking Guide.) The GART is there for the benefit of the whole community to enjoy hiking, runningContinue reading
Trail Talk 63 April 24 2019
The featured trail this week is the Maple Keys Sugar Bush Trail (#4 in the Huron County Hiking Guide editions of 2006,2010, 2013). This trail is not in the 2016 edition of the Guide. TheContinue reading
Trail Talk 62 April 17th 2019
The featured trail this week is the Wingham Community trail (#1 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). The trail starts at a parking lot on Josephine Street across from the old railway station, and nextContinue reading
Trail Talk 61 April 10 2019
The featured trail this week is the Goderich Waterfront Boardwalk trail (#6 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). The trail starts at the bottom of West Street and goes for about 1.5 km to RotaryContinue reading
Trail Talk 60 April 3 2019
The featured trail this week is the Goderich Millennium trail (#11 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). The trail starts at Highway 21 just south of the bridge over the Maitland River, and ends atContinue reading
Trail Talk 59 March 27 2019
The featured trail this week is the MacNaughton-Morrison Trail, Exeter (#26 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). The trail starts at the parking area in MacNaughton park at the end of Hill Street. The trailContinue reading
Trail Talk 58 March 20 2019
The featured trail this week is the Morrison Dam Conservation Area trail (#27 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). The trail starts at the parking lot on Morrison Line ( East of Exeter) and justContinue reading
Trail Talk 57 March 13 2019
The featured trail this week is the part of the Maitland Trail (#13 in the Huron County Hiking Guide) at the end near Auburn.-Map #7 in the Maitland Trail Guide. The trail ends at theContinue reading
MTA AGM
Friday March 29, 7:30pm. Door opens at 7pm. At the Livery, on South St in Goderich Membership form can be downloaded here. You can also renew or get a new membership through our online portalContinue reading
Trail Talk 56 March 6 2019
The high winds on Sunday February 25th were one of the few occasions where I did not venture out with Chewy after lunch. There are a lot of small branches on the trails. At Naftel’sContinue reading
Trail Talk 55 February 27 2019
The featured trail this week is the Hullett Sugar Bush trail which is one of the many trails in Hullett Provincial Wildlife Area ( #17 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). The Sugar Bush trailContinue reading
Trail Talk 54 February 20 2019
The featured trail this week is the Lobb Trail.(#15 in the Huron County Hiking Guide) This is one of my favourite trails. There is an upper and lower trail with five cut offs between theContinue reading
Trail Talk 53 February 13 2019
The featured trail this week is the Maitland Cemetery Trail ( #7 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). This trail at the North end of the cemetery was severely damaged by the 2011 tornado, andContinue reading
Trail Talk 49 -Jan 16 2019
The trail featured this week is the Falls Reserve (#4 in the 2016 Huron Hiking Guide, #5 in the 2013 guide. The Falls Reserve Conservation area has a number of trails, including about 2.4 kmContinue reading
Trail Talk – November 21, 2018
The featured trail this week is the Front Road Trail. The trail is on the West side of Front Road between the Bayield river and the Railroad tracks. (Front Road is the 1st South offContinue reading
Trail Talk – November 14, 2018
The featured trail this week is Point Farms Provincial Park (#6 in the Hiking Guide). The hike on Sunday afternoon on November 4th was well attended by 19 hikers and three dogs who enjoyed aContinue reading
Trail Talk – November 7, 2018
The featured trail this week is Naftel’s Creek Conservation Area maintained by Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (#12 in the Huron County Hiking Guide). This is one of the trail gems of Huron County. It hasContinue reading
Trail Talk – October 31, 2018
On my evening walk on the Woodlands Arboretum trail, where the trail skirts one of the greens there were about 100 Shaggy Mane mushrooms at the edge of the green. The monarch butterflies have allContinue reading
Trail Talk – October 24, 2018
On Saturday I hiked down the Black Hole road hill to River Bend. The pond is usually empty of birds but that day there were over 100 Canada geese on the pond. Along the roadContinue reading
Trail Talk – October 17, 2018
I went back into Morris Tract on Friday afternoon and was grateful to find my lost pruners lying on the trail. As I hiked on the trail a black squirrel ran across the trail andContinue reading
Trail Talk – October 10, 2018
The Maitland El Camino was again a success with 277 participants who enjoyed great weather and near perfect trail conditions on Saturday. On Sunday the day started with quite heavy rain, but later on thereContinue reading
Trail Talk – August 29, 2018
Ragweed pollen is a common allergen. A single plant may produce about a billion grains of pollen per season, and the pollen is transported on the wind. It causes about half of all cases of pollen-associated allergicContinue reading
Trail Talk – September 5, 2018
Two weeks ago I mentioned invasive plants, the longer list of 88 species also includes following that I have regularly seen in our area: coltsfoot, black locust, box elder (Manitoba maple), hawthorn, periwinkle, St Johnswort,Continue reading
Trail Talk 42 November 28 2018
The featured trail this week is Redmond Tract which is a Huron County Managed forest area at 38521 Westfield Road, (It is not in the Huron County Hiking Guide.) There are many intersecting logging roadsContinue reading
Trail Talk – August 15, 2018
One insect in our garden that is probably on our trails but rarely seen is a Katydid. It is part of the grasshopper family. It will tend to hop or jump away but as aContinue reading
Trail Talk – October 3, 2018
On October 4th Chewy is celebrating his twelfth birthday. On September 15th he was quite happy to hike for four and a half hours from River Line to Cherrydale road without any obvious after effects.Continue reading
Trail Talk – September 26, 2018
On a couple of hikes some people were stung by wasps. This prompted me to look up my first aid books (Action First Aid, St John’s Ambulance, and Red Cross). They agreed that if aContinue reading
Trail Talk – September 19, 2018
One of the plant “Species of concern” is the green dragon. I have found it in several places all in the flood plain of the Bayfield river. It has a very distinctive swirl of greenContinue reading
Trail Talk – September 12, 2018
There is quite a lot of spice bush on our area trails. Although I am not fond of most spices I love the smell of crushed spice bush leaves, described as a spicy citrusy smell.Continue reading
UPDATE: Trail Conditions
There are trail closures in place for hunting season, and the Menesetung Trail has been re-routed. See the TRAIL CONDITIONS page for details (see link above).
Trail Talk – August 22, 2018
A quite common pretty flower is the Himalayan balsam, which unfortunately is another of the unwanted invasive plants. The flowers are pink with green or red tinged stems. The green seed pods, seeds, young leavesContinue reading
Trail Talk – August 8, 2018
On Friday July 27th we hiked from Lobb road to the Lobb’s parking lot. In the part where the 2011 tornado had broken the trees there were a lot of blackberries, some of which wereContinue reading
Maitland Trail Hike End-to-End in Two Days – July 2018
Maitland Trail (Two day Hike) July 7, 2018/July 27, 2018 Tania Tucker and Ken Gaudreau In early May, I completed the Maitland trail with a fellow co-worker, however, my long time hiking partner has alwaysContinue reading
49km in a Day – Maitland Trail Hike End-to-End
Maitland Trail (49K in a Day Challenge) – May 5, 2018 Chris Monteath and Ken Gaudreau Here are the highlights of the trail. After completing the Avon Trail end-to-end over a 6-week period in summerContinue reading
Trail Talk – August 1, 2018
On Thursday July 19th at the bottom of River Line I surprised three Great Blue Eastern Herons, I believe two were juveniles, I don’t recall having ever seeing more than one together. On Monday JulyContinue reading
Trail Talk – July 25, 2018
The long dry spell has resulted in many plants getting that wilted look, and the Bayfield river has been just a trickle, however the mosquitoes don’t seem to be as bad as usual due toContinue reading
Trail Talk – July 18, 2018
I was reminded on Monday how easy it is not to notice things when hiking along the trails. I only noticed the Michigan Lilies on the section up stream of Sharpes Creek Line when IContinue reading
Trail Talk – July 11, 2018
Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush the mulberry bush, here we go round the mulberry bush on ta cold and frosty morning. This is a familiar Nursery rhyme from my BritishContinue reading
Trail Talk – July 4, 2018
I was reminded while walking on the Lobb trail of my walk last July 1st when I took Chewy there at night to get him away from the noise of fireworks. We were welcomed byContinue reading
Trail Talk – June 27, 2018
Hiking in the hot weather can be a problem, so it is wise to bring water along to drink. There are still interesting sights along the trails but the abundance of spring flowers is nowContinue reading
Trail Talk – June 20, 2018
I enjoyed a week up in the Sault Ste Marie area, the big difference is that there were more bugs and they have a tent caterpillar infestation, which was not quite as bad as theContinue reading
Trail Talk – June 13, 2018
On Friday June 1st we saw great displays of barberry which is a prickly shrub with yellow flowers, later on it has oval shaped red berries which are sharply acidic, rich in vitamin C butContinue reading
Trail Talk – June 6, 2018
Frogs, Toads, Turtles, and Snakes. With the warmer weather there comes the chance to see some reptiles and amphibians. All Ontario turtles are at risk, the ones most likely to be seen are the smallContinue reading
Trail Talk – May 30, 2018
The Thursday May 10th birding outing had fourteen bird watchers out seeking our feathered friends. Common birds sighted included turkey vultures, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, mallards, ring-billed gulls, herring gulls, robins, grackles, swallows. Also sightedContinue reading
