This is my first adventure of 2018. So far this winter the weather had been terrible for snowshoeing. There hasn’t been a lot of snow and it has been really cold. This has made really icy conditions. I brought my snowshoes but after walking for just a hundred meters I decided to leave them in my car.
Welcome.
The three trails at Torrance Barrens.
View from the start. Up on the hill there are several campsites.
I decided to do a complete loop of the entire place. The Pine Ridge Loop Trail was closed but you could see that people had previously hiked the trail. There was a broken bridge that would be very unsafe to cross in the summer so it makes sense why they closed the trail.
View from the unsafe bridge.
Most of the Pine Ridge Loop follows an atv/snowmobile trail. This made for very icy conditions. From the Pine Ridge trail I hiked the Barrens Extension trail. This was a very well marked trail. A lot of the rock was exposed so I could easily follow the white blazes.
White trail blaze on a cairn.
When the three trails meet there is this big circle of cairns.
Circle of cairns.
Along the ridge of the main trail there are several campsites. There was a couple who were staying the night when I was there. There is not enough room to camp in trailers so you have to camp in tents. The feature image is of Highland Pond on my way back.
This is a great snowshoeing place if there was fresh powder. If your looking to get into winter camping this would be a great place to start knowing that your car is only a few hundred meters away if the weather gets to unbearable. I’d love to visit at night on a clear night.
Click on the 
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 symbol to see all the photos. There are 10 in total.
Stats:
12.1 km hike
265 meters elevation gain
Ontario Adventurer 