Outside and Hiking at the Frink Center

During these times of social distancing, my family and I are still doing our best to get outside and enjoy a little bit of nature when we can. Although a lot of places like Ontario Parks have closed, our local conservation authority actually made access to conservation areas free, so we have been spending some time at a couple of local areas that we haven’t been to in quite a while.

Just a few minutes drive north from our house, we have access to a beautiful conservation area with multiple trails at the H.R. Frink Center. This area also doubles as an outdoor education center for our local school boards.

This post has pictures from two different visits, the first from a walk to the boardwalk trails on the south side of the road with just Hayden and I, and the second set from the north side of the road where all three of us hiked.

The South Trails

From the newly built parking lot, which actually provides a lot of parking, there are a set of trails that head towards the marsh, through the trees and out to a boardwalk. It was on this section of trail that we were greeted by multiple Canadian Geese and a handful of Trumpeter Swans.

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The boardwalk is only partially completed to the middle of the marsh where we both sat and listened to the wildlife play with each other. The beaver that lives in this pond also decided to show up for a little visit. We decided to not hike more of the trails through the woods as the trails were very soggy in the warmer weather and we did not want to destroy them. We would come back again to hike the trails as a family.

The North Side

Heading across the road to the main section of the conservation area, we hiked the trail that took us along the drumlin, past the Hi-Low trail and connected us back to the Sugar Shack. This conservation area taps their maple trees each year and produce maple syrup as part of the educational programs.

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As we continue down the trail we choose to hike the Pixie trail as it leads us to the fun activity section (this reads as: Hayden wants to go play on the fun stuff). We bounced along the trail opting to hop from tire to tire and then headed back to the vehicle.

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It was nice to get out and enjoy hiking these trails. My goal is to go there again some day this week and run the trails. Have you been keeping yourself busy this month? Have you been getting outside, even if it is just for a little bit? Leave us a comment below. Thanks for reading!