Yes, Collingwood, Blue Mountains, and the Beaver Valley offer Southern Ontario’s finest downhill skiing. And, yes, Georgian Bay is a world-class kayaking destination, in an area well known as a recreational playground. But the region is a hiker’s paradise, too.
This explains why Collingwood, the Blue Mountains, and Beaver Valley are featured in the sixth instalment in the Loops & Lattes series of Southern Ontario hiking guides. This new volume features long hikes and short ones, hilly hikes and flat ones. Some have waterfalls, others have sand dunes. There are forested hikes and meadowed strolls. Some offer broad vistas, while others take you back to pioneer days.
This book will guide hikers to Metcalfe Rock, Pinnacle Rock, Freedom Rock and Old Baldy. It will introduce them to crevices, caves, canyons, karst topography and a keyhole, as well as hidden crannies where snow lasts until July. There’s an airplane crash site, an avalanche site, a pair of labyrinths, and the highest point on the entire Bruce Trail. And, not to be missed, are the Beaver, Bighead, Mad, Noisy, Nottawasaga, and Pretty rivers.
Should your thoughts turn to pleasures of a gustatory nature, Collingwood, the Blue Mountains, and Beaver Valley have you covered, too. The guide outlines après hiking suggestions ranging from creamy rich lattes served in a plethora of fine cafés, restaurants of every description, food trucks, bakeries, cideries, brew pubs, wine bars, and trailside apples.
For hikers living in or around Collingwood, the Blue Mountains, and Beaver Valley, this guide will uncover new hiking adventures, albeit in already familiar places. For visitors, it will unveil a mountain of new hiking opportunities from short and sweet to long and challenging. So, I ask you: What’s not to hike?
An avid hiker and the award-winning author of ten books, including the Loops & Lattes series of hiking guides, Nicola Ross combines her knowledge of the landscape with her hiking skills to bring you routes that crisscross southern Ontario’s dramatic cliffs and sprawling farm fields. www.nicolaross.ca
