411 for the 905

 A friend recently asked me for some information about the trails in Mississauga.

Something I know a bit about.

So, I figured I'd compile a list of the bits about which I have some knowledge, as it stands to reason someone else might be interested in the same information at some point.

Culham / Davidson Trail

Now, full disclosure - I've only run this once, and it was more than 3 years ago (back in June 2017), but it was a nice venue for a shorter-distance run at the time. 

Map taken directly from my Garmin data

I parked at the offices of Credit Valley Conservation and headed north from there, across a beautiful footbridge over the Credit River, along a mixture of paved pathway, crushed gravel, and into some doubletrack with a tiny creek crossing up near the 407. It was relatively flat except for one hill about 3/4 of the way out, and entirely runnable.

Also highly enjoyable - not totally sure why I haven't gone back!

Applewood Trail

This is another one I have only run once, back on Easter Sunday in 2018. 

This preceded an Easter visit to my mum, and was done while wearing bunny ears!

Having only seen it in early spring, it was neither the most interesting nor the most scenic trail. Paved along its entire length and bustling with families out for one of the first nice afternoons of the year, it wasn't exactly what I'd hoped for, but was probably better for me than the uncertain surface of single- or doubletrack while I was still recovering from my catastrophic ankle injury.

It's also very well marked, so there's no chance of getting lost.

I parked in the parking lot of a buffet restaurant on Dixie Rd and ran west along the trail, doing the tiny loop at the end and running all the way back. It was again fairly flat, and would be great for putting in some fast miles...assuming it wasn't too busy. 

Also assuming Etobicoke Creek was behaving itself - it runs a tiny bit close to the trail in spots!

Etobicoke Creek Trail

Full disclosure - this is one I haven't (yet) run at all. 

They claim it's 11km, but this is all I could find on the map

From what I can gather, this would be very similar to the Applewood Trail in that it's mostly paved and tree-lined, following Etobicoke Creek. Reports say there are some small hills, but it would seem to be entirely runnable, and reviews say it stays nicely shaded in the summer; great for a hot, sunny day.

Photo taken from this site detailing improvements made to the trail

Chinguacousy Park & Surroundings

This is another one I haven't actually done, in Brampton rather than Mississauga (but close to where my friend will be working, so I'm throwing it in here for her, and also for me to check out the next time I'm down that way!) 

Seems like a decent stretch for a longer run

Of course, I'm again going by what I'm able to glean from the interwebz here, but this seems to be another mix of paved & crushed gravel pathway. I see reports that some of it can be a bit overgrown, signage isn't the best, and the creek it follows has been unfortunately relegated to a cement channel instead of being permitted to provide natural habitat for wildlife. There does seem to be some nice landscaping/gardening happening in Ching Park itself, though.

I'd run through that.
(Photo from a google image search)

Pavement could get tiresome doing more than 20km on it (for an out-and-back), though.
(Photo from this site, which gives some further details)

Paul Coffey Park

This is the last one I'll throw in that I don't personally know, and it's only here because I plotted a route my friend could use on her lunch break:

It's a long road section to get to a wee bit of trail, but what do you expect by the airport?

As this park is mostly a sports field venue, I'd anticipate that the "trails" are more along the lines of paved pathways, and what information I'm able to find about the park substantiates this assumption. Still, running paved trails around a park beats bopping down a sidewalk through commercial/industrial areas any day in my book!

There also seems to be an Avro Arrow on display

..not to mention a castle-styled playground with a heckin' DRAGON!

Saigon Park

Ok, back to stuff I actually know about. 

This was only a mile from my old office, so I'd usually run there once a week.

As far as I can tell, this park - constructed around a set of stormwater management ponds - was only built within the past year. I discovered it while out on a lunch walk near my office in perhaps January or February of 2020, and have seen many improvements made to it as the months have gone on. 

The pathway is paved, and (as mentioned above) the loop is exactly 1km with markings in 100m increments. There are also a few fitness stations - pull-up bars, balance beam, elevated push-ups, dips, and I can't exactly remember what all else (I've never got to use any of it due to the pandemic onset right as the weather approached to touch metal equipment with bare hands) - distributed around the loop, and since there is a fire station and ambulance garage on the east side of the park, you'll have help in a jiffy if you make poor decisions.

It made a nice additional loop on my lunch runs, but isn't necessarily somewhere I'd drive to specifically to run. If you wanted mental training for short loops, it would be excellent, but despite the demarcations I don't see it as a great venue for speedwork; there's about a 2-3m difference in elevation between the north end and south end, which isn't much in the grand scheme but certainly isn't flat like a standard 400m oval. Of course you could use the downhill as your interval, but having the uphill in between might impair your ability to recover sufficiently for the effort required on subsequent reps.

Perhaps I'm overthinking things. I usually just slog along as best I can anyway, and leave the speedwork to those type-A folks that care more about results than the experience and pretty photos.

The place does happen to be quite beautiful, especially on a sunny day - full of wildflowers and ducks.

Plus these things, which seem to be giant walls of constellations - I've never found any explanation for what the intention was here. They form a circle at the southwest corner of the loop, with appear to be benches on the interior side.

Jan's Trail

These last few sections are all quite short individually, but I'd link them together into a 7-8km route that was my favourite post-work run in 'Sauga.

I've chopped it into sections to provide better detail

This starts with a paved path from the back of the Iceland Arena parking lot, past the sports fields and down across a little creek, then turn left (southeast) to go past the teaching gardens (which are planted with a wide variety of flora, from local flowers to herbs and vegetables) and the forest. There is a tiny bit of singletrack in said forest on the south side of the main path, but only a couple of hundred metres.

Paved pathway toward Parkway Belt Park

If you take the dirt option, hit the trail that goes straight ahead instead of following the right-hand turn of the paved trail (which would take you between a parking lot and some sports fields, where I'd often see cricket matches on Wednesday evenings). The paved option does have the advantage of being lit after dark, but the dirt is far more interesting.

Doubletrack alongside highway 410 - who would've known?

You pass by quite a lovely pond, bordered with rushes and tall grasses and almost always with a few waterfowl lazily floating around.

The view is only partially spoiled by the power pylon in the distance.

You'll be spit back out onto the paved trail past the off-leash park, then the path turns right to parallel Eglinton Avenue. Follow it out to the first set of lights (Kennedy/Central Parkway) to continue.

Central Parkway Trail

It's not really a trail at all, but bear with me.

This is a recently-built multi-use paved pathway down the east side of Central Parkway from Eglinton to the new MiWay station south of the 403. It serves as a link between park/trail sections, and a common active commuting route. It is a marked downhill from north to south, and a great stretch to open up your stride a little, though the residential areas that branch off are fairly busy so there's always the chance of hitting a red light at one of the cross-streets.

Not the most scenic thing, but a means to an end.

If you either cross over or take the regular sidewalk down the west side, you can also do the loop of Huron Heights park, which features more paved pathway through sports fields, a playground, quite often lots of people (watching little league baseball and soccer games), and not much in the way of scenery.

Nothing to write home about, but it is lit after dark, which can be handy during the winter.

Woodington Green / Alberto Catuadella Memorial Trail

When you hit Rathburn on Central Parkway, hang a right to turn east, then turn left (south) into Woodington Green

We're getting to some really nice bits now.

Woodington Green itself

The first portion of this is paved pathway through a wide-open park, with a pretty sharp downhill toward a road crossing at Meadows Blvd., past which you're in a rather narrow right-of-way between a creek and the back fences of a residential neighbourhood.

It's lovely and shady down there in the evenings

Turn right and climb a short little hill to continue on the paved Burnhamthorpe Bikeway, then cross over to the south side of Burnhamthorpe at Robert Speck Parkway and continue west across the bridge over Cooksville Creek. Right after the guardrail ends, make a left-hand hairpin turn to hit the washed-out crushed gravel pathway into the creek valley.

Mind the 2.5" drop off the end of the pavement

As you come down along Cooksville Creek, to your right there are singletrack trails branching off that will take you in a short loop on top of a hill

You can see the main crushed-gravel trail below, and the creek beyond

From the main trail there are also a few points where you can climb right down into the creek itself on some of the rocks that form a series of small waterfalls.

Which is, to my mind, always worth it.

This is possible - though not necessarily advisable - in every season.
Note that there is no lighting between Burnhamthorpe and Mississauga Valley Blvd.

Cooksville Creek Trail

The alternate route is paved pathway through parks, but was required when the main trail was under construction in 2017.

This is the final section that I'll highlight, and the map even shows the short paved stretch between Kirwin Ave & Littlejohn Lane that I don't usually bother with - not only is it the least scenic, but I've been a bit wary since I heard about a shooting in Littlejohn Lane that occurred about an hour after I'd run through there. There's also been some construction in the area that has limited access, so I just end at Kirwin Ave. where there is on-street parking available right by the trailhead.

It's also worth noting that I sometimes wouldn't do this last section at all; if I left directly from my office, it was about 8km to the community centre (past which the cyan route goes near its origin), where there was of course a large parking lot for Tank to meet me...and a splash pad, of which I totally made use on some very hot evenings.

This part of the trail, despite being paved, is quite nice - shaded by mature trees, following along the creek. The bridge to cross from the west side to the east just south of Central Parkway was just built in 2019.

Crossing over the cement trough they built to contain the creek

You'll cross over Mississauga Valley Blvd. (again - it's a loop), then head down under the rail bridge where ducks like to congregate on a shoal of gravel.

This is pretty narrow for passing people and a very steep downhill, followed by an equally steep (but short) climb

Just past the rail bridge, you can hook left up a dirt climb to the singletrack loop on top of a hill.

I haven't done a lot of exploring up here, but there's probably only about a half-kilometer of trail anyway

The main trail is quite lovely, too, with towering trees on both sides as it follows along the creek.

It tends to stay cool down here even on the hottest days

The trail hooks to the right and goes up a short climb as the creek bed turns to a cement trough once more, and you're spit out at Kirwin Avenue right by the bridge.

On the rail of which someone has drawn some adorable graffiti

So that's my favourite trek through the surburban landscape of Mississauga.

This is the whole thing on one map.
An interactive version is available here

If you were to run this as an out-and-back, I'd suggest starting from Kirwin Ave so you can run uphill on the way out, as the elevation loss from north to south is quite substantial.

Also: since I've never run it the other way, I couldn't tell you how tough that would be!

There are, of course, other options for running in Mississauga - there's the boardwalks of Rattray Marsh, the Waterfront Trail, and I'm sure many others I've forgotten about completely. If you have something awesome to add to this list, please feel free to let me know in the comments below!