Westminster Ponds Trail Run – Chase March

Well it is time for another visual tour of my run. This time, I hit the trails at Westminster Ponds in London, Ontario.

The curious thing is that it is listed as an “environmentally significant area.” What a strange term to use. I wonder if they call the mall down the road a “commercially significant area.”

Anyway, it is quite nice here. I had a good run. I hope you enjoy this visual tour.

There are several trails that wind through the 300 hectares of land here. They are all marked with a yellow painted tab, which doesn’t make much sense to me. I wish they had different trail markers or at least signs pointing back to the tourist information / trail centre building.

The reason I say that is because I got lost on these trails. I ended up running some of the same areas two or three times to make it back to the parking lot. I ended up at two different entry points to the trail and had to loop around more than once.

It was a nice run though and it felt great to get away from the city. It was really quiet and peaceful.

What’s this? I had to stop here to take a closer look.

It seems that there were some early settlers on this piece of land. A cabin used to sit here. Well, back to my run.

I’m not sure but I think I may have gotten off the main trail at this point.

But I got back onto the main trail, or so I thought. It seems that every trail back here is marked with a yellow tab.

There are lots of bridges and boardwalks back here. The path can be a bitty muddy in some places. After all it is a wetland area with lots of bogs, marshes, and swamps.

Here’s a challenging hill to run up. Lots of roots to dance around.

Here are stairs to run down and then back up. But I just had to see the lookout.

This looks nice.

But enough admiring the view. I need to figure out how to get out of these trails and back to the parking lot. I’ve already been out here for over twenty minutes. That’s my usual 5 kilometers. I’m about ready to quit but I’m not quite sure how to get back.

It took me about 15 more minutes to find my way out of these woods but I did it.

This is the sign where I started my run. There is some more information about the area on the back of it.

All I know is that if I ever come back here, I think I will actually go into the trail centre and get a map. They really need to mark those trails better. I thought I’d have to run for hours to find my way back here.

All in all, I ended up running approximately 8 kilometers. My running time was just over 35 minutes. I was completely soaked with sweat by the time I was done.

So make sure you stop by this building to get a map if you decide to check out Westminster Ponds. You can also check out their website for more information.

http://www.thamesriver.on.ca/Wetlands_and_Natural_Areas/westminster.htm

I hope you enjoyed this visual tour of my run.