I love this time of year for hiking, few if any bugs to bother you, no problem with heat stress, lots of interesting fall flowers to see and some lovely colours as the leaves turnContinue reading

September 1st was  day one of my virtual Maitland Camino.  To see details of the virtual DIY Camino(Sept 1-27th ) at  https://www.maitlandtrail.ca/mta-el-camino/, if you sign up the cost is $10 and you may have aContinue reading

September 1st was  day one of my virtual Maitland Camino.  My first hike was therefore with the Tuesday Trompers  at the Hullett Provincial Wildlife Area Sugar Bush trails.  I managed to fill  squares C1 –Continue reading

On August 19th one of our local hikers Susan Ethelston from Benmiller completed hiking the whole G2G trail.  On most sections she hiked on her own, parking the car and hiking a few km andContinue reading

I am taking part in the Do it Yourself (DIY) Maitland Camino. I hope to hike the full Maitland Trail sometime in September. I plan on filling out most of the DIY Camino Bingo cardContinue reading

On our Tuesday Tromp at Wawanosh Valley Conservation Area we found some giant puffballs, they were in two different places, my photo is of two of them among the pine needles. It made me lookContinue reading

I keep on discovering plants, insects etc. that I am unfamiliar with.  Often I find out what they are from a field guide, followed by searching on the internet when necessary.  I don’t have aContinue reading

I have noticed a lot of chicory along the edge of both Stone School road, Bannockburn line and Kitchigami road where it grows with wild carrot ( also known as Queen Anne’s lace).  Chicory hasContinue reading

A wind storm on Sunday July 19th resulted in quite a few trees in our area being blown down.  There was quite a blockage on the front road trail where I have now managed toContinue reading

Last trail talk I mentioned how low the Bayfield river was but before the article went to press there was heavy rain on July 9th and 10th so that on my Friday evening hike theContinue reading

I saw a butterfly  that was very intent on a pile of dung, most of the time it had folded wings but I managed to get a photo with partially open wings.  I could notContinue reading

The work on the GART was stopped when it was realized that the part near the pond was known as a turtle nesting site.   Cristin Watt from Trent University got permission and collected 58 snappingContinue reading

On Thursday June 18th we saw what we believe was a Monarch butterfly the first of the year, and on Saturday at Varna, I saw a monarch that stopped long enough for me to getContinue reading

Two sights while driving to or from a trail have been a fox crossing over highway 21 and a young groundhog crossing over Pinery Line.   This is the time of year that you are mostContinue reading

I went to see the new Huckins Street bridge which is certainly a work of art due to the efforts of  the work crew, a job well done. I have placed some Inukshuks at theContinue reading

First my apologies for misplacing the Bannockburn Tract, it is on Bannockburn Line South of Mill road not North of Mill road. The Maitland Trail work crew have now installed the new bridge in theContinue reading

Nearly all our trails should be open, although washroom facilities will be closed.  The exceptions I am aware of are the GART closure from Hwy 21 to the end near Auburn, for trimming brush.  ThisContinue reading

Let’s hope we have seen the last of the frost this spring.  The cherry trees have been out in blossom, most of the ones I’ve seen have been the Pin cherry,  where the flowers areContinue reading

We enjoyed a brief warm spell on the first weekend in May, which resulted in lots of trilliums blossoming.  On Sunday May 3rd I wanted to see how many spring flowers I could see onContinue reading

This tree was unusual as it joined itself together again to make a D The Friday hike had 18 out despite the cold (-15o C) weather. We hiked the Maitland Trail from Auburn.   At oneContinue reading

On our Friday hike on Feb 7th at Exeter we were rewarded by having a fairly close view of a pair of bald eagles, one flying and one perched on a nearby tree until itContinue reading

On Sunday February 2nd the Maitland trail hike at Hullett had a much smaller turnout than the previous week’s outing, with only two snowshoers and one skier.  Perhaps it was the Super Bowl or theContinue reading

On Sunday Jan 26th the Maitland trail hike at Sheppardton tract had the largest turn out I can remember (other than the Camino and candlelit events). Due to the mild weather the trail was unusuallyContinue reading

This was an interesting week with Sunday Jan 19th  being the time to dust off the snowshoes and join the snowmobilers. The 13 LIFE hikers ventured out on Friday Jan 17th to hike the SugarContinue reading

Red is a favourite colour in the Christmas season, which made me think about when I have seen that bright red along the trails. My first thoughts were high bush cranberry berries and rose hipsContinue reading

The forecast for the coming winter is for a mild one which may mean that we will have a lot of lake effect snow, which will make hiking easier with skis or snowshoes. I tookContinue reading

Our Friday hike (Nov 29th) at Varna and Bannockburn was blessed with ice free trails. Chewy when on the bridge at Bannockburn got too close to the edge and before I could pull him backContinue reading

Have you been enjoying the winter reprieve?  On the Thursday (Nov 21st) hike at Lobbs there was only a little snow and we caught sight of a fox ,which I don’t remember seeing at LobbsContinue reading

Winter has arrived a bit early this year so it is a good time to think about icers. Do you remember how slippery trails and pavements were last year? The demand for the Lee ValleyContinue reading

The past week we had quite a wind, this resulted in nearly all the rest of the apples falling off the trees and many of the autumn leaves are now carpeting the trails.  I noticedContinue reading

On the Friday hike we saw an interesting mushroom at Naftel’s which I think is a panther.  Later that day on the Front road trail I saw a rabbit which was the first time IContinue reading

On the Thursday hike we saw an American toad which was rather lethargic in the cool morning.  I noticed a shrub at the top of the hill in the Falls Reserve that had a lotContinue reading

On Friday when the LIFE hikers hiked the Bannockburn and Taylor and Mavis trail the windfall had been cleared .  We also met the hard working Bayfield River Trail Association work crew. On Saturday OctContinue reading

On Friday October 4th Chewy celebrated his 13th birthday on what I believe is his favourite trail – Lobbs.  The advantages of this trail for him are –          Many places to stop and have aContinue reading

As we grow older we suffer a decline in mental and physical fitness, which can be made worse by conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. A new study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, showsContinue reading

The featured photo is of hikers at the Cherrydale bridge on Sept 14th Last week just having written about not seeing any puff balls I saw one which was about 7 inch across, on checkingContinue reading

This is one of the best times of the year for hiking. If any bighting insects are around they are few and far between and we are unlikely to have any more unbearably hot daysContinue reading

This week was hard on Chewy. My hike on the Woodlands Nature trail resulted in him picking up over 150 small burrs, which fortunately were easy , though time consuming to remove.  On our FridayContinue reading

For some reason trail talk 81 was not published in the Signal Star. To see it go to the Maitland Trail Website www.maitlandtrail.ca On the Tuesday Tromp on the Hullett dyke, as well as myContinue reading

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