January update: nature pauses, geocaching and hugging trees at Kortright Centre

January 23, 2016August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 14 Comments

Yesterday, I had about 20 minutes to spare before picking up my husband from work so I decided to swing by Cullen Bryant Park in East York for a nature pause. It is my second week into a new job so I have been putting most of my energy into trying to get the hang of it and haven’t had much time for nature pursuits. The lack of vitamin N has started to take a toll: I could feel a spring inside me get tighter and tighter. But the moment I stepped into the park the spring started to uncoil. It was a very short walk along the Taylor Creek Trail (although it did include a pretty steep stair climb) and the boots I was wearing weren’t suitable for a slippery winter trail, but I emerged from the ravine feeling like a different person.

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The Best Camping Moments of 2015

December 31, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 2 Comments

It is the season to tally up accomplishments over the past year and make plans for the next one. Our New Year resolutions are usually summed up with “camp as much possible, visit as many new places as possible, try as many new things as possible.” Putting together a list of 2015 best camping moments is a slightly more difficult task since there were so many of them. Nonetheless, here is my attempt to narrow the list to our 10 favourite camping memories of 2015 (in no particular order).

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All I Want for Christmas: Hiking over the Holidays

December 30, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 7 Comments

On Christmas night, we found ourselves zigzagging our way down the South Outlier Trail at Mono Cliffs Provincial Park. The last sunlight had already slid behind the cliff and the much-hyped rare Christmas moon hadn’t made its appearance yet so it was pretty dark, especially under the thick cover of a cedar forest. We did bring a couple of flashlights with us so we could at least see roots and rocks under our feet. My friend, who decided to join us on our adventure, wasn’t particularly excited about this development and proclaimed that it was about 20% too much adventure. I think that percentage shot right up when we heard some distant howling.

But let me backtrack a little.

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Hiking at Mount Nemo and Our First Snow of the Winter

December 24, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 8 Comments

Officially, it’s winter here in Canada. Although you wouldn’t say it as we’ve been wearing light spring jackets and running shoes for the past three days and the temperature is expected to rise to 15ºC on Christmas Eve. Sometimes, I feel like we overslept and woke up on the first day of spring. On Saturday, however, we saw winter’s slight attempts to establish its reign. A few flurries caused a lot of excitement, at least for me. My husband has a slightly more ambivalent relationship with snow since he has to do more driving. We had a lengthy discussion about merits and disadvantages of winter on the way to Mount Nemo, our microadventure destination for the day. We had observed it from Rattlesnake Point a few weeks ago and decided it was time to take a closer look.

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Saturday Hike in Forks of the Credit Provincial Park and the Beauty of Snowless December

December 15, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 11 Comments

A few days ago, Facebook reminded me that Toronto had a major snowstorm around this time last year and as a proof, pulled out a picture of my son, knee-deep in snow, playing soccer with his friend while waiting for a school bus (I captioned the photo “‘Snowccer’ Before School”). These days, with temperatures hovering way above zero, snow seems like a distant memory. This transition between fall and winter feels like a drawn-out pause filled with restlessness and longing for the crispness of a frosty day. With all the colourful foliage now turned into uniform brown mash under our feet and snow nowhere close on the horizon, landscapes around this time of the year may seem boring and lifeless. And the temptation to stay indoors, especially on a gloomy, overcast day like last Saturday, is quite strong.

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Exploring Hamilton Waterfalls: Webster’s Falls, Tew’s Falls and Dundas Peak

December 10, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 10 Comments

You know those lists of “Ontario’s Natural Wonders” or “Places You Wouldn’t Believe Are in Ontario” that are often circulated on Facebook and Twitter? There is no shortage of them on social media so you’ve probably seen at least one. I occasionally click on those links to see which places we should visit in Ontario. Every time I scroll through those lists, I am amazed that while we have been to parks like Sleeping Giant, Kakabeka Falls and Ouimet Canyon that are two days away from Toronto by car, we haven’t visited any of the places that would take less than an hour to get to.

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Rethinking Wild Places or Search for Trees in the City

November 20, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 23 Comments

“Let’s go find some trees,” my friend said a few days ago. So here we are sitting on a rock in High Park where trees are not hard to come across. They are right in front of us, sticking their bare branches into the sky. I try to block out the noise coming from Queensway and imagine I am in the forest. Not an easy task so I focus on birds chirping and twittering instead.

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Hiking at Rattlesnake Point: no rattlesnakes but lots of lookout points

November 16, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 24 Comments

At the end of last week, my husband finally emerged from under a pile of tests and report cards. So on Saturday we decided to celebrate by going on a hike at Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area.

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A Trip to Scarborough Bluffs

November 10, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 22 Comments

It is a beautiful November afternoon. We are on our way to Scarborough Bluffs, one of Toronto’s famous natural attractions that I have heard so much about but never got time to visit. As we drive through the east end, my friend and I listen to Queen and talk about our cell phone obsessed culture and Toronto’s diverse neighbourhoods. My son falls asleep in the back seat. It is a long drive. Sometimes it feels we are in a different city altogether.

We finally turn onto Brimley Road South. It winds its way downhill through the fall-coloured parkland, half of the trees already spot bare branches. We round another turn, and the blue waters of Lake Ontario come into view. I can hear my friend gasp next to me. I must admit that even though I knew the lake was coming at the bottom of the road, this inundation of open space and water is startling.

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Embracing Microadventures: Exploring Jack Darling Park and Rattray Marsh Conservation Area

October 30, 2015August 12, 2016 / Oleksandra Budna / 19 Comments

Every year as the fall rolls in, we find it more and more difficult to get out of the city. School, work, homework, extra-curricular activities, Halloween costumes, piles of tests for my husband to grade, somehow these activities take up more and more space and all of a sudden we can’t go camping every other weekend anymore. But it is not necessarily a bad thing because it frees up a lot of time for local explorations. Lately, I realized that quite often when I think about nature and adventures I cast my eyes far beyond the horizon to places up north or parks south of the border. Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle and The Last Child in the Woods, calls this phenomenon ‘place blindness,’ a tendency to overlook the beauty of nature close to home. Don’t get me wrong, I still need my quiet and solitude that can only be found in remote places. However, by embracing microadventures, I discovered that lots of beautiful natural spaces can be found close by, even in a big urban area like Toronto.