During the course of my pandemic walks, I started looking for anything green in the map of Toronto and undertaking walks to explore those areas. Eventually, I realized that several green areas can be strung together into an urban walking trail that is mostly separated from cars. I think of it as a bit equivalent to Vancouver’s Seawall as a place to get exercise in a natural surrounding without having to worry about too many cars.
The Cyclone route includes the Beltline trail, the Nordheimer and Cedarvale ravines, and a route through Rosedale and the Mount Pleasant cemetery back to the eastern end of the Beltline. The route is easy to get on and off, as it passes near five subway stations:
Map: no road labels, road labels, road and subway labels.
The approximate path of the main route is in blue on those maps, and actual tracks of GPS data are red.
I began calling the trail The Cyclone in December 2020 and have shared it with family and friend. I was surprised yesterday to come across a tweet describing much the same route.
Pandemic walk: Cedarvale and Nordheimer Ravines – NOW Magazine
https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/health/pandemic-walk-cedarvale-nordheimer-ravines
Night Hike: Central Ravines and Belt Line (11 KM) (4/16/2014)
https://www.torontooutdoorclub.com/events/details.asp?eventid=5354
Beltline – Part 1 – going EAST – 11Km (7/5/2014)
https://www.torontooutdoorclub.com/events/details.asp?eventid=5506
Diversions: If you’re feeling in the mood for a longer walk, you can keep going past Ramsden Park, crossing Yonge and entering the Rosedale Valley behind Rosedale Station. Follow Rosedale Valley Road down to Bayview Avenue and cross to join the Lower Don Trail. You can then turn north and follow that trail up to the Evergreen Brickworks. If you are feeling especially frisky, you can keep following the Beltline Trail from the Brickworks up through Moore Ravine, through Mount Pleasant Cemetery, and finish at Yonge near Davisville Station.
I’ve also done all this in reverse, starting at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and following the Beltline to the Brickworks, then going up Rosedale Valley Road to Ramsden, and on continuing up through the ravines to end back at Eglinton. It’s mostly uphill in that direction so it’s a tougher walk.
https://walkablog.ca/2020/03/07/favourite-toronto-walks-cedarvale-nordheimer-ravines/
Using the City of Toronto’s Hillshade – Bare Earth – 2015 dataset (recommended by Marcel Fortin at the Map and Data Library at Robarts), I made depictions of the Cyclone trail with LIDAR data underneath: