Winter Trail Collection - 2019

Continuing from the last post about Defeating the Off Season Blues, here are a couple of small trails we did last winter to try and keep our minds in the right place. All of these are pretty short, but with the snow and the cold they were all pretty satisfying and kept our spirits up.

Cedar Bog Trail - Birds Hill Park

Cedar Bog Trail

Cedar Bog Trail is a nice 2.5 km trail winding through some cedar trees at Birds Hill Provincial Park. It's got a nice wide trail, pretty minimal elevation gain, and is very well marked. It was a nice 45 minute walk just after the sunset for us, and the moon light shining off the snow was a cool sight. For some more detail, we've talked about this trail before on our First Hike of 2019 post.

Bunn's Creek Trail - Winnipeg Manitoba

Bunn's Creek

We've mentioned Bunn's Creek trail before here, and it's a solid trail for a quick get outdoors moment. The route we walked was 7.1 km long on this trip with a nice coffee break halfway through.

Esker Trail - Birds Hill Provincial Park

Esker Trail

Esker Trail is a pleasant 6.6 km trail that we did our first cross country skiing experience on. At a spot called Griffith's Hill about halfway along the trail there is a look out tower and a warming hut with a fireplace, which was a great spot to stop and eat lunch. This excursion has led to us doing a two day cross country ski trip this year, and we will be buying our own skis now in time for next season.

Seine River Greenway - Winnipeg Manitoba

Seine River Greenway

The last trail I'll highlight as a good example of trying to get outside during the winter is the Seine River Greenway. It was a 6 km round trip for us with a stop for coffee at the halfway point and lost of small deer to see during the walk. In the winter its a bit barren and you can see some of the houses outside the green way, but it was still pretty satisfying.

As you can see from the above, getting out to do some small local hikes or short cross country ski trips can really help take the edge off of winter. We will definitely be trying to get out more with our new skis next season.

Bunn's Creek Trail

Length - 3 km Point to Point (hiked as a return)
Time - 31 minutes

Bunn's Creek Trail, with a detour due to flooding

View down the creek in the early spring time

Bunn’s Creek Trail is a small 3 km trail running through North Kildonan in Winnipeg, MB. It traces its way along side Bunn’s creek as it winds its way through the suburbs. The trail and creek are lower than the houses in the area, and there are plenty of trees hiding people’s backyards and masking the noise of traffic in the area, making it easy enough to forget that there are thousands of people within a few minutes of you.

The trail is well groomed gravel for most of its length with minimal pavement or concrete, making it fairly easy on the joints as compared to walking on sidewalks or paved trails. Most of the people we have seen on the trail are homeowners in the area and generally well past middle age. Many people also walk their pets on the trail, which has been fine for the most part. On one of Roslyn’s solo walks she did run into an off leash dog, but she managed to find its owner after about 10 minutes. 

For a quick outing to remind ourselves of what trails can be like it serves it purpose well.

In Roslyn's words:

"This quiet urban trail is the perfect weekday adventure when you come home from work wishing someone would pick you up and through you in the woods. The path is impressively long for an urban trail, well groomed, and follows a little creek through a tunnel of trees. The west trailhead is about 100 meters away from a Mountain Bean coffee house which makes a lovely half way break or a trail end reward. There is a parking lot on the west trailhead and residential street parking on the east trailhead. The trail can be very icy in early spring so over shoe cleats may be a good idea. Early spring is also the time when the creak can be a bit smelly. Over all, this urban trail is a lovely afternoon stroll beneath the trees, listening to the creak babble and, at least for a little while, leaving the daily rush and hustle behind you."

A different view down Bunn's Creek in the early spring

Roslyn and I have completed Bunn's creek as a return now three times and plan to do so a few more times through out the summer as a quick outing to get a morning coffee and a snack. Each time the scenery has been a bit different and we are excited to see how it changes through out the spring and summer!

P.S. - We are planning on uploading the actual route for the trail in the future when we are able to walk it again without the detour.