We spent last weekend in Port Hope exploring all the different activities offered around town. We had a packed itinerary that was kindly put together for us courtesy of Port Hope Tourism. Our day started off with Treetop Trekking in the beautiful Ganaraska Forest. If you’re up for a good challenge, we were informed by the staff that the Ganraska Forest location is the toughest one across the GTA. Treetop Trekking – Ganaraska offers 6 courses: 2 for beginners, 2 for intermediates, 1 advanced, and 1 expert course.
We arrived for 9AM in order to start the climb at 9:30AM. After we signed a waiver, we received our wristbands and waited a little bit for the rest of the group to arrive before getting help to put our equipment on. Everything was well organized. Our instructor led us to the mini “training course” setup in the forest for safety training. We were taught how to use our equipment to navigate around the obstacles on the course. We were also shown the proper way to fall and how to help yourself back up onto the course. Everyone in our group was required to demonstrate our new skills before being permitted on to the beginner courses.
I was quite nervous for the first beginner course because it included a zipline component to it. The staff positioned themselves at the end of the zipline to ensure that trekkers were able to land and detach properly. Before I knew it, I had slowly gotten the hang of things & I was starting to whiz through the 2 beginner courses.
I started to slow down on the 3rd course – the intermediate one. Some of the obstacles were trickier and required more balancing and there was even a ‘tarzan’ style jumping rope swing haha! I was forced to stop after this course because I felt like my arms were going to fall off! Eden, on the other hand, didn’t feel a thing and proceeded to the next course!
The courses had a combination of :
- Suspended Bridges
- Tarzan Swings
- Swinging Logs
- Cable Traverses
- and of course, Zip Lines!
All in all, our Treetop Trekking experience in Ganaraska was amazing! We’re totally planning on coming back to have another go at the intermediate courses. If you’re interested in booking Treetop Trekking or looking for more information, you can click this link here.
Here are a few tips that might come in handy if you’re planning on Treetop Trekking for the first time:
- The trek itself is going to be roughly 3 hours so I recommend allotting at least a good half of the day for Treetop Trekking.
- Remember to wear comfortable clothing & shoes. I wore a long sleeve shirt with yoga pants and closed toe shoes.
- Remember to bring sunscreen and bug spray – you are in a forest after all!
- The trek happens rain or shine. The only time the treks are on hold is if there is thunder or lighting.
- Feel free to bring your phone + cameras on the trek. It’s easier if you have pockets to store these items as some obstacles require both hands. I wouldn’t recommend tying your camera to your wrist though as it could get damaged while swinging around.
- There is an area in the forest with small storage cubbies where you can leave your purse, water bottle and keys etc.
- Treetop Trekking accepts online reservations, and these are actually highly recommended. You can make reservations here and hitting “book now”
- Lastly, don’t forget to have fun! I was a tad afraid of the heights at first but after the first zip line I didn’t notice anymore and had a great time!
That’s it from me guys! Be sure to leave a comment if you’re planning on going Treetop Trekking in Ganaraska! Feel free to also follow along my Instagram page where I update daily with what I’m up to.
Written by Grace Yeung
Edited by Eden Yeung
This post was done in collaboration with The Municipality of Port Hope but gracelisamay.com remains unbiased in our content.
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