The Humber River Trail runs 56km from Lake Ontario through Etobicoke and Vaughan — one of the longest urban trails in Canada. Cycling, running, wildlife sightings (deer, herons, salmon runs in fall), and completely car-free.
Neighbourhood: Etobicoke · Address: Humber River, Etobicoke to Vaughan, ON · Hours: Open year-round
Why Visit
Stretching from Lake Ontario into Vaughan, this trail gives you uninterrupted green space for cycling, running, and wildlife spotting without ever crossing a road. It's the rare spot in Toronto where you can watch salmon swim upstream in fall without leaving the city.
What Makes It Unique
Unlike other trails in Toronto, the Humber River system is almost entirely car-free for kilometres on end, weaving through forested valleys, wetlands, and even historic bridges. Few trails in the city let you see deer, herons, and honest-to-god salmon runs, right alongside extensive multi-use paths.
The Humber River Trail System is one of the GTA's most ambitious and rewarding greenway projects — a network of connected trails that runs 56 kilometres from Lake Ontario at the Humber Bay all the way north through Etobicoke and into Vaughan, following the Humber River watershed through landscapes that shift dramatically as you move from the urban lakeshore through suburban parks and into the semi-rural Oak Ridges Moraine at the trail's northern end.
The Lower Humber section — from Lake Ontario to the Old Mill subway station — is the most accessible and most used stretch. The paved trail runs through the Humber Valley, a deeply carved glacial ravine that insulates users from the urban fabric above. Mature trees line the river, the water is clean enough to attract herons and kingfishers, and the elevation of the valley walls creates a genuine sense of seclusion even though you're a short walk from busy Bloor Street. The Old Mill historic district, with its Tudor-style bridge and seasonal salmon runs in fall, makes a natural destination point.
Further north, the trail passes through Etobicoke and Woodbridge with increasing periods of natural landscape — meadows, wetlands, and upland forest that host deer, wild turkeys, and seasonal wildflower blooms. The trail is suitable for road cycling in the lower sections and hybrid or mountain bikes in the upper sections where the surface transitions to packed gravel and earth.
The Humber connects to the Lake Ontario waterfront trails at its southern end via the Martin Goodman Trail, and to the north with various Vaughan and Regional Municipality of York trail networks. The trail is free, open year-round, and offers significantly different seasonal experiences — spring wildflowers and salmon runs, summer shade and swimming holes, fall colour in the valley canopy, and winter snow walks through the ravine.