Hiking in Crothers Woods Trails: trails, map and practical info

A mature forest in the Don Valley

Crothers Woods covers 52 hectares of mature maple-beech-oak forest. According to the City of Toronto, many of the trees are more than a century old. The woodland is an Environmentally Significant Area: its forest is diverse, mature and relatively undisturbed, and it holds wildflowers and tree species that are rare in the Toronto region.

The City's brochure invites visitors to look for, among others, butternut (a provincially endangered tree species), black walnut, eastern hemlock and sugar maple, as well as bloodroot, jack-in-the-pulpit, mayapple, trillium and trout lily. Birds can nest and breed here.

The Sun Valley Trail

The Sun Valley Trail is a 1.3 km granular-surfaced trail, 2.5 m wide, which the City classes as a multi-purpose beginner trail with one 100 m steep section. It circles the old Sun Valley landfill, which is being restored to forest.

According to the City's brochure, the site was used as a landfill until it closed in 1965. It was then covered with topsoil and allowed to revert to a natural state. Since 2004, about 5,000 trees have been planted there, connecting it to the adjacent forest of Crothers Woods.

Cottonwood Flats

The Cottonwood Flats Trail, 0.7 km long, granular-surfaced and 2 m wide, is classed in the City's brochure as a multi-purpose beginner trail; the September 2026 map marks it "Easiest", the lowest level in its legend. The site's industrial history goes back to the early 1800s: a mill operated there until 1858, an insulation manufacturing facility took over between 1940 and the early 1960s, and the site then stored excess snow cleared from Toronto roads until 1999. It has been left to renaturalize and now attracts many birds, including ground-nesting songbirds.

The other trails

The City's brochure describes about 9 km of multi-use dirt trails, one metre wide, with some steep sections, rated intermediate. The City's trails page says about 10 km, "ideal for hiking or mountain biking". In the brochure, only Sun Valley and Cottonwood Flats have a name and a length.

Rules and safety

• Use at your own risk: recreational trails are not regularly maintained and can be steep and slippery.
• Avoid the trails during and after rainfall or windstorms: trees or branches may fall.
• Dogs, people and bikes stay on the trails. Do not widen trails or cut new ones.
• Keep dogs on a leash at all times. Pick up after your dog.
• Trails are multi-use and bi-directional unless posted otherwise. Cyclists yield to pedestrians and wear helmets at all times; users going uphill have the right of way.
• Do not enter or cross railway corridors except at a signalled crossing.
• Respect trail closures and restoration areas.

Getting there

The City of Toronto's map (September 2026) shows the Thomas Hauser Memorial Trailhead near the Loblaws; its header gives the address "27 Redway Rd", without saying which point it refers to. It also shows the Lower Redway Trailhead, near the Lower Don Trail, and marks an area closed for Ontario Line construction near the Leaside Bridge. Opening hours and parking fees appear neither on the map nor in the brochure.

To report a hazard or a maintenance issue, the City asks you to contact 311. It also invites people to write to trails@toronto.ca to help with trail and habitat maintenance.