Trail 12- A 3.7 km Hike in Kanata

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I’ve gone out to Trail 12 in Ottawa’s Greenbelt a few times, and each time I was… thwarted! Looking at it on the map, it looks like the easiest trail in the world. And for the most part, it IS easy hiking. But it also gets quite wet in spots- I turned around once because I was only wearing sneakers and didn’t feel like tromping through the puddles. AND it’s in the middle of a cross country ski trail network for the Kanata Nordic Ski Club. So on my second attempt there, we got completely lost. We had a nice time doing it though.

Overall, Trail 12 makes for a pleasant walk in the woods. And each time we’ve gone (early or on weekdays), we’ve had the trails very much to ourselves.

Dogs are allowed on this trail, which is a little less than 3 km long. In the winter, these trails are used for cross country skiing, and the NCC asks that we don’t walk on the ski trails.

Getting There

Trail 12 starts at P3, on Corkstown Road. You can use these coordinates to get there: 45.332620, -75.858243.

There’s a blue P3 sign at the side of the road, but not much else announcing your arrival. The parking lot is a good size, with room for about 30 cars. At the trailhead, there’s a map posted. There are no facilities.

The trail is easy to find as there’s only one that leaves the parking lot. We walked through a section of tall grass before heading into the forest.

Maps and Trail Markings

Let me be very blunt here. When navigating this trail system, disregard the NCC’s trail marking completely. Not only did they do essentially no trail marking on the actual trail, where they’ve physically posted their Point A sign makes no sense, and the arrows on it just add to the confusion.

Luckily, the trail marking and maps provided by the Kanata Nordic Ski Club are exceptional. You can see on their map that certain trail splits have letters correlating with them. At each of these lettered points, a map is posted.

So, in order to stick with the NCC’s Trail 12, you must follow the trail to Point I, then F, then D, H, and back to I where you’ll then return to the parking lot.

It would make a TON of sense for the NCC to have posted THEIR point A where Kanata Nordic’s Point I was. In fact, I think they meant to because where we reached the NCC’s Point A during one of our attempts, after walking for about 2.5 km, the sign said the parking lot was only 800 metres behind us.

On this same attempt, we also ended up following Trail 1 for a while, making our way past Points E, C, and B as well. This had us walking through Wesley Clover Parks in the middle of their Halloween display! Staff there didn’t seem too stoked about us being on site and I think TECHNICALLY we were accidentally trespassing… So learn from our mistakes! When we took the long way we ended up hiking for about 5 km.

The Trail

Okay so back to the trail. It started out quite wide, and for the entire length of it, remained that way. It is, after all, a cross country ski trail in the winter.

We passed over a few short boardwalks, and skirted a mud puddle here and there. Then, the trail got rockier and rootier, but it was still quite easy to navigate. Along the way there were a few small hills, but ultimately we had found ourselves on a very easy hike.

During a good portion of the hike we also found ourselves walking along open rock face. It was a cool change in the terrain.

Points on the Kanata Nordic Map, and How to Stick with the NCC’s Trail

For the most part, when I talk about getting “lost” on this trail, I mean we had no idea where the NCC’s trail was or wasn’t. Using the Kanata Nordic map is the simplest way of staying on track. AND on the NCC’s trail, so here’s our route broken down using their map system.

Point I, 1.1 km, go straight: Here, we had just passed Kanata Nordic’s Trail Trail on our left, and 12b was directly to our left.

Point F, 1.9 km, turn left: This is where the NCC has a map posted and indicate that you’ve reached “Point A” on their map. An NCC trail marker with the number 12 just to the left indicates you’re headed in the right direction. The trail is shared with Kanata Nordic’s Trail 1, so we spotted these markers as well.

Point D, 2.1 km, turn left: To the left, you can see NCC trail markers. There’s a path that goes straight ahead and would bring you to Point H, if you wanted to leave the NCC’s trails for a bit of a longer hike. Here, the trail is shared with Kanata Nordic’s Trail 10, so these trail markers were posted as well.

Point G, 2.4 km, go straight: Here, Trail 12a was to the left, and trail 11 intersected on the right almost immediately afterwards.

Orange Arrows, 2.6 km, turn left: Kanata Nordic’s Trail 10 ended at an intersection with Trail 1, with bright orange arrows indicating a choice between left and right.

Point H, 2.65 km, turn left: Turning left here got me onto Kanata Nordic’s Trail 12b, bringing me directly back to Point I.

Trail Thoughts

By the time we had arrived back to the parking lot, sticking with the NCC’s trail, we had hiked about 3.7 km. Walking at a fair pace, this could take a little less than an hour. Hiking with a toddler, it took a lot longer!

Despite needing multiple attempts to “figure this trail out,” it’s still one that I enjoyed very much. It’s absolutely perfect for an easy stroll in the woods. And even when you get lost, it’s really easy to get found again, since the Kanata Nordic Ski Team has done such a great job of marking the trails and having maps posted.

In the winter, the trails will become cross country ski trails, and a pass is required to be on the Kanata Nordic Ski trails. So at that point it will be especially important to stay on the NCC’s trail.

I hope this trip report has enough info to get you there too. Let me know in the comments, or share and tag a friend to start planning your next adventure!

Map and Elevation Gain

Whenever I’m hiking somewhere new, I tend to wonder about who was on, and who took care of that land before me. I’ve enjoyed using this website as a place to start learning more about the indigenous people whose land I’m on: Native-land.ca.