Pinery Provincial Park
Address: 9526 Lakeshore Rd, Grand Bend, ON N0M 1T0, around 2.5 hour driving from Toronto. It is one of the most beautiful parks in Grand Bend featuring Lake Huron and small river/creek along the ways in the South-west part of Toronto.
Parking and Admission
There was an admission fee to go into the park including the winter time. There was a staff at the entrance kiosk for us to pay. And we paid $18 for three of us (2 adults and 1 kid). We got a small winter map as well to explore the park. But we found the map a bit confusing since it was not so detailed. After getting our map, we drove to find a parking spot. We got one and it was close to the Sassafras Trail sign. We just followed that trail sign to find other trails that are marked on the map.
Trail Information
Pinery has 38 km of skiing trails, hiking trails, snowshoeing trails, and the lookouts /picnic sites. And, they also have the trails to get access to the beach (Huron Lake) but the beach assess was closed during the winter season. They also have a lot of cross country skiing trails, skate ski trail, and walking/snow shoeing trail. Here are some trail information: 1- Cedar Trail, 2.3 km (hiking trail). They have a connected extension trail to the beach but it was close in the winter. 2- Heritage Trail, 3.0 km (hiking trail). 3. Ausable trail, 4.7 km (cross country skiing trail). 4- Dune Ridge Trail, 9.4 km (cross country skiing trail). 5- Huron Trail, 9.6 km (cross country skiing trail). 6- Chickadee Trail, 4.2 km (cross country skiing trail and hiking trail). 7- Skate Ski Trail, 11 km (as the name entailed, it is for skate and ski).
Hiking Experience
The day that I went there it was after a big snow and we had thick snow on the ground. And it was fun to walk on without the icy road and get slippery. I was thankful to the snow! I parked near the the Sassafras Trail sign and I chose to go on that trail and then I passed the office store and we saw a river and bridge as well as stairs to get down to the water. But instead, I stepped down from the trail to the frozen water and saw some cracked sign, so we decided not to walk on the frozen river. We just continue our walk towards Chickadee trail. This trail was located along the Dune Ridge Trail half way. Because we got to the park in the late afternoon, we could not spend much time exploring the entire trail, so we could complete only half of the Chickadee trail and then returned back, because when we reached the end of Dune Ridge trail along with the Chickadee, there was no other loop on the Chickadee trail to get back.
Other to Explore
There were so many interesting things to explore along the trail. Even the trail itself has some up and down path that my 7 year old kid could bring her sled and, sometimes, she tried to do a short sledding along the way. Also, we had so much fun taking beautiful pictures of the snow standing on the leaves and trees. When we returned back, we saw lot of trees having been cut by Mr. beavers. Even though it was the winter time, they were still active. I got back to the parking lot at around 5:10 pm, when the sun was down and almost set, I saw a beautiful reflection of sunset on trees and snow as well as the frozen water. It was just so magical. Please take a look at our photos below to enjoy.
