Blue Mountain Resort (Winter) - Ontario

* The dates on some of the images are incorrect due to camera malfunction. All images were taken in 2013.

 

Blue Mountain Resort is a ski resort located in Ontario, Canada near the town of Collingwood. Situated near Nottawasaga Bay it  is third-busiest ski resort in Canada, after Whistler in British Columbia and Mont Tremblant in  Quebec.  It also has a  "village" similar to those built at Tremblant and Whistler at its base. 

As part of my time share I went on to stay there for two nights from December 13 to 15, Friday to Sunday. I had invited a close friend and his family to accompany us to the resort. Our plan was to drive there after work on Friday and check in. Check out time was Sunday 11 AM.

Friday was a relatively nice day with some forecast for light snow later in the evening. To ensure that we didn’t get stuck into annoyingly heavy traffic on highway 401 and 400 we started late, around 8 PM. The weather remained pretty good with practically no snowfall. On the highway to our satisfaction we saw very light traffic all the way to our destination. It was about 200 kilometers from our location. Hwy 400 took us to Barrie from where we took 26 W to reach the resort on Jozo Weider Blvd. 

 

The room was a one bedroom suit with a full kitchen and a family room. It was neat and cozy and was large enough to accommodate two small families. The view of the ski hills right from the family room window was great.

On Saturday morning we woke up late, ate a big breakfast in the suit prepared by the two gracious ladies. We then packed up in heavy snow clothing and went to check out the village.

 

None of us ever done any skiing and had no reason to try it now. Couple of the kids had a very mild interest in skiing but considering our inexperience we had decided not to allow them. We walked around the village, took pictures and checked out the activities.

It was very cold with -18C temperature (feel like -21C). After about an hour everybody was so exhausted in cold that we decided to return to our room. We had thought of going up the mountain on a lift chair but regretfully noticed the lift tickets were designed for the skiers only and was relatively high in price. It made little sense for us to spend that much for one single trip.We returned to our room and were happy in the pleasant warmth that it offered.

Later that afternoon we went to the Aquatic plunge. This was one of the main attraction for us as we were not into skiing.

 

The plunge was a blast. Initially as we entered in the facility the shallow but spacious indoor swimming pools looked nice but not worth the price that we paid for it. The water was also a little cold than what we had expected.

However, our perception of it completely changed as soon as we found out that the indoor pool was connected with the outdoor pool and the swimmers were allowed to go there either through a channel that connected the two pools or just walk out and jump in. It takes no telling that the outdoor pool was adequately heated. This was a great experience as the outdoor temperature was pretty low. As we swam outside the water in our exposed hair kept on getting frozen. The kids had a blast. There were also a specious hot tub with steamy water. We had a great time there submerged in the hot water as the snow covered pine trees stood nearby.

On our way back we got ourselves some famous Putin (of Quebec). It is basically cheese and gravy over fries. Usually taste okay but these ones were little too salty. Kids ate greedily, I could barely eat.

At night there was supposed to be a fireworks in the Mills pond. Unfortunately by the time we arrived there the very short (few minutes) fireworks had already finished. We could only see a few crackers. Kids were quite disappointed as dressing up for this event took them about ten minutes. Anyway, we took this opportunity to check out the village at night. It was nicely decorated with Christmas trees and colorful lights.

 Once we returned to our suit my friend's fifteen year old daughter realized she dropped her cell phone outside. Dad and daughter sped out in search for the cell phone. Fortunately as they traced back our trip around the village they found the cell phone intact, lying on snow.

 Next morning we checked out and made our way back home. The night before there were some snowfall. The trip back home looked quite snowy white.

* The dates on some of the images are incorrect. All images were taken in 2013.

Fall trip 2013 - Forks of the Credit, Caledon

Every year some of us friends go away from home for a night or two to enjoy the fall colors of Ontario. This was our sixth year. Initially we had planned to go to Waterloo for one night but things didn't work out. So, instead of totally scraping the fall trip we decided to make it a Fall day trip. As we have kids who are relatively small and extremely reluctant to go for long drives we always plan to visit places that are not more than 3 - 4 hours drive, preferably much shorter. Having been to Midland, Huntsville, Ottawa, Peterborough  our choices near home was limited. After some researching in the net I felt Forks of the Credit Provincial park would be a good place to go for a nice hike. Especially the long stairs down to the river was a sure pull. In addition there was the Badlands nearby. Between those two spending 4-5 hours seemed like fun. 

From Ajax we took 401 West, hopped onto 410 North and then merged into Hwy 10 or Hurontorio road. After about 9 kilometers on Hwy 10 we turned left on Olde Side road (West). After driving about 4 kilometers we noticed several dozens of cars parked on the side of a hilly road. There was no large signs but I sort of assumed that this was probably the Badlands. We parked the car by the side of the road and walked about 50 meters to the spot. The Badlands was a spectacular view and the kids who were sort of reluctant to come in this fall trip were totally amazed and amused.

From there we went to Forks of the credit provincial park. There are many ways to get there. But from Badlands one of the most scenic way would be to take Mississauga road north all the way to Forks of the credit road (11), follow it all the way to McLaren road. The road meanders through woods and goes uphill and downhill with one hairpin turn. Overall very nice drive. On McLaren we drove several kilometers before reaching the park entrance. This is a popular park and in fall a large crowd comes to visit it. When we reached there most of the parking lots were totally full. Many people parked on the road leading to the parking lots and some even parked on McLaren road and walked several hundred meters to the trail mouths. We were fortunate enough to find some parking spots as some people were leaving. My friends bought parking passes from a machine and placed it on the dashboard (I received a parking pass from an elderly couple who were leaving early. How generous of them! The parking passes are $5:50 and above depending on duration). Later we saw a police officer was issuing tickets to the people who did not buy a pass.

There are several trails in this park, most are very easy meandering through meadows and small hills. We took the trail that is called Meadows trail. Here are some of the images.

From their we went to the village of Belfountain which seemed like a popular place with hundreds of visitors flocking the small but scenic place. We all stopped by an ice cream shop and savored in delicious scoops of ice creams. Later we bought some honey from a street vendor and head toward waterloo.