Torrance Barrens Dark-Sky Preserve

My friends and I went hiking at Torrance Barrens Dark-Sky Preserve near Gravenhurst last Saturday. Three of us actually planned on camping overnight so we could take star photos.

All through the week we monitored the weather conditions to see if they would be ideal. It turned out there wouldn't be any rain, but as for clear skies... that was another story.

We took two cars up. Gabe drove Roger and Pasty and their neighbour (I can't remember his name). I drove Peter and Emily. We were the three that originally planned on staying overnight.

We met at 10:00 and headed up to Barrie for lunch. Just off the 400 at Dunlop Street there's a restaurant called Big Chris BBQ Smokehouse that Peter heard about.

We went in and the seven of us split a dinner for four. It consisted of 2-racks of ribs, a large Caesar salad, 4-corn bread muffins, 2-lbs of wings and an additional large side (we picked the poutine) for $64.95 plus tax.

After lunch we drove an hour further up Highway 11 before getting off at Highway 13 which took us to the park (you can also go up 11 to Highway 19/13 too).

I have to say this is the most basic of parks. All there is is a couple of signs telling you about the park and one lonely outhouse. There are signs indicating the trails and markers along the way. But that's pretty much it.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car we knew this could be an unpleasant walk. That's because we were instantaneously swarmed by deer flies. I quickly put on my mesh bug jacket and hat. The others sprayed themselves with bug repellent.

We started hiking immediately. Within the first 1/2 hour we found a spot that looked decent enough to camp at. So each of us (Peter, Emily and I) set up our tents. I know it sounds odd to have one tent per person, but we all wanted to try out our tents before the big trip out west.

After setting up our tents while being assailed by deer flies we left our large backpacks inside to weigh them down. The tents were on solid rock, so we couldn't put any pegs in to hold them in place.

We hiked half the Main Trail before coming upon a fork in the trail that split to either the Barrens Extension or Pine Ridge Loop Trail. We decided to do the latter.

The scenery was decent. It's mostly granite with some grass, trees and small lakes. The blue skies with lovely white clouds were a beautiful backdrop. We even saw a baby Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake (which is a threatened species). About a foot long, it was lying on a rock along the trail. After surrounding it taking photos, it because agitated and rattled its little tail.

In the end we hiked 9 kilometres. All the while being constantly harassed by deer flies and mosquitos which incessantly buzzed around our heads. For that reason we headed back to the Big Smoke. No camping or nighttime photos this time. That will have to wait until later in the season when all the "buzz" has died down.