During a trip to the Guelph area in the winter of 2015, we decided to check out Starkey Hill Conservation Area. The 37 hectare property is part of the Grand River Conservation Authority. The park offers free parking and a 4 kilometre trail that travels up some steep forested slopes, through wetlands and offers some spectacular panaromic views of the area. Unfortunately, Maya was getting pretty slow and achy on cold, damp days. We decided to do the first loop so that it wouldn’t be too much for her, plus the trail was pretty slippery on the day we hiked it.

There is an online brochure that tells hikers about the property and its history. There are also some posts that are numbered that coincide with information in the brochure.

After getting all of our layers on, including Maya’s warm orange parka, we stopped to check out the colourful sign at the trail head. There was a basic trail map listed with other information about the wildlife found and some guidelines on respecting nature.

These eastern white cedar fences were originally built by the Starkey family to contain livestock back in the 1880’s. It’s amazing to think that these split rail fences are made of wood that was cut down over a century ago.

Prior to arriving to the Guelph area, they had a large snowfall followed by a bit of a thaw, which them froze. This quick change in temperature makes the snow quite hard and slippery. We carefully and slowly guided Maya up the well-worn trail.

The next sign we can across was for the interpretive trail information. They had a place for the brochures and a QR code for those who prefered to view it on their mobile devices.

Maya was enjoying the slow, meandering pace we were keeping, which gave her plenty of time to take in all the smells from previous visitors and local wildlife.

The hardwood forests had sections of pine plantations in between them. Although the pine stands are slowly regenerating, there are still sugar maples, beech, white ash, ironwood and black cherry trees found throughout the property.

The trail continued to slope upwards and we had to be especially diligent to make sure Maya didn’t slip and fall. This would have been a good time for rubber boots with traction.

I have always loved the red of these pine trees. Just beyond these trees were some bird feeders that were attracting a variety of winter bird species. We saw nuthatches, chickadees, cardinals, sparrows, finches and doves.

After taking the first loop we came across the first, and only people we saw on the trail that day. It’s encouraging to see young families getting out with their children to experience nature, especially on colder winter days.

This was the first and, so far, only time we have hiked this trail. I would love to revisit it in another season to actually get to the top and see the views of the Eramosa River and the surrounding countryside.