Once in the Arboretum, take the right hand laneway up the hill to Rasberry House. Leave one car near the old stone silo at the parking lot by Rasberry House, and use the other car to take the hikers to the parking area at Valley Road. To get there, turn left on to Old Guelph Road from the Arboretum, and at York Road (not to be confused with York Boulevard), turn left.
Turn right at Valley Road and go up hill to a small parking area at the west side of the road. Description of Hike: From the parking area on Valley Road, take the main Bruce Trail (white blazes) on the west side of the road down into the forest, roughly half a kilometre to the intersection with the Ray Lowes Side Trail. Turn left and follow the Ray Lowes Side Trail down the valley of Hopkin’s Creek. The Trail emerges at York Road, follows it south for about 1 km, and then crosses the road and turns onto the grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens. In this next section there are several RBG trails, part of the Cootes Paradise North Shore Trail System. Take care to follow the blue blazes. Near the end of the side trail you will reach the old silo at the parking lot at Rasberry House.
You can purchase maps, books and other products from the Bruce Trail General Store, open from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. The side trail is named after Ray Lowes, the Founder of the Bruce Trail. Ray’s concern for conservation of the Niagara Escarpment in 1960 lead him to the idea of providing a public footpath on Escarpment so that people would explore it and see the need to conserve it. From his original idea, the Bruce Trail Association and its member Clubs now develop and manage more than 1,200 kilometres of main Trail and side trails, and are active in preserving and stewarding thousands of hectares of land along the Escarpment.
With file information from the Bruce Trail, for more information on this and other Bruce trails please purchase the Bruce Trail map and trail guidebook. The Bruce Trail is the oldest and longest marked hiking trail in Canada. It is 840 km long, with over 440 km of side trails. Every year more than 400,000 visits are made to the Trail as people walk, snowshoe, watch wildlife, take photographs and admire the glorious scenery of the Escarpment.
The Bruce Trail was instrumental in the Escarpment being named a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations in 1990 - one of only twelve such reserves in all of Canada. The Bruce Trail is a member of the Ontario Trails Council through affiliation with Hike Ontario.
For more information on trails or to view a trail video by activity please go to the OTC Youtube Channel
Ontario Trails do not own or manage any trails. Check with the identified manager before using this trail. Do not trespass, allowed uses only.
For more information on the great sport of snowshoeing please see our partner Snowshoe Canada
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Rain until this evening. 
