Muskoka Owns a Place in my Heart: The Torrance Barrens - Dark Sky Reserve

The air was a little crisp on Saturday, but not a cloud in the sky. Guys had gone golfing. surprise, surprise. Sitting at the cottage with my 3 girlfriends, Lindsey, Maryjo and Sharon, (probably talking about our husbands - actually there is no doubt that we were talking about our husbands!!!), we decided to put on our running shoes and head over to the Torrance Barrens for a walk around one of the most beautiful trails in Muskoka. http://muskokatrailscouncil.com/trailguides/muskokalakes

The Barrens are classified as a "Dark Sky Reserve", you can see 360 degrees of the sky, at night there isn't a light anywhere other than the natural beauty of the stars and planets. I haven't been able to talk myself or anyone else into going over at night. It is beautiful but I think at night it would be a little scary. One day, when there is a full moon I will drag someone over (watch out girlfriends)....

The rock formations are wonderful, huge vistas of rock with nothing growing on them, no powerwashers here to keep them clean, just the wind, rain, ice and snow. You can see the quartz veins running through them. These rocks are part of the Canadian Shield and 2 billion years old.

There are 3 trails, we thought we had walked the large one, but looking back at the map - sorry girls I think we only did the 3.5 km one. lol Before too long, sweaters were coming off. MJ was gloating over the fact that she had her shorts on. And to boot there weren't any prickly bushes to walk by as most of the time you were walking on the ROCK. Running shoes definitely a good idea.

We came upon this little group of Standing Stones, needless to say we all started thinking about the "Outlander" series by Diana Gabaldon with most of the talk being about our darling "Jamie". http://www.dianagabaldon.com/books/outlander-series/ it is now being turned into a tv series.