Sudbury's Rainbow Routes Association has jumped on board with a trend that has been gaining popularity around the world, urban hiking.
The organization has been home to a hiking club since the early 2000's, but on Jan. 13 they added some new flavour to the mix, with the EXPLORE Sudbury event series that includes guided tours of the city, as well as themed hikes.
Urban hikes were popularized in the UK, according to Véronique Charbonneau, EXPLORE Sudbury project manager.
“They have a very elaborate urban hiking program (in the UK), where they post hikes and routes and have discussion boards, and participants just pick a route and they go,” said Charbonneau.
“The difference between classic hiking and urban hiking is that it's around a city. The way that we define is that regardless of physical environment, as long as it's within city boundaries we consider it urban hiking.”
Since their launch, the organization has hosted nine of these events, including classic hikes, family events, lunch walks, themed tours, and more.
The themed walks have been especially popular, with the first one on Jan. 22 taking a tour of a number of the city's murals that adorn building facades in Sudbury's downtown.
“We had our murals walk and we had a hike leader who was very enthusiastic about the idea but didn't have all the knowledge about the murals,” said Charbonneau.
“We connected with Up Here and contacted (muralist curator) Nico Glaude and (Up Here executive director) Christian Pelletier and they were the experts on the tour and they helped our leader guide the walk.”
Hike leaders are expected to take care of the logistics of the hike by planning the route, but Rainbow Routes will help in connecting with experts to provide extra information along the hikes.
EXPLORE Sudbury hosts lunch hikes every Friday that start at Tom Davies Square and traverse the downtown core. Themed walks have already garnered some positive responses, and the classic urban hikes are a mainstay.
Charbonneau says that a big focus moving forward is the development of the family walks.
“We're really working on the family walks where families would meet at a park, go for a little walk and then come back and play at the park,” she said.
The organization is always looking for new hike leaders to plan out routes, as well as experts from different backgrounds with different areas of expertise.
“We're always looking for partners, even somebody who is not necessarily willing to commit to regular hikes, but who has knowledge and expertise to share and something to showcase,” said Charbonneau.
The next themed hike will be an interfaith walk that will make stops at a number of different places of worship around Sudbury, which will take place on Feb. 26.
Themes are open for participants to make suggestions on, or anyone who would like to lead a themed hike is free to do so. The organization also has prioritized certain hikes, such as making trips to the Downtown Sudbury Market when it returns this summer.
“We do call out to volunteers and participants for what they want to see and we have a shared potential themes list and it's on a first come first served basis,” said Charbonneau.
“For example, the interfaith walk was something that we had as an idea, and a volunteer came to me and said she wanted to do it so we run with it from there. We kind of go with what the volunteers want to do.”
Next up on the calendar for EXPLORE Sudbury is a lunchtime urban hike this Friday, Feb. 17 from 12:05 p.m. - 12:55 p.m. The next full hike is a Family Day event that takes place on Monday, Feb. 20 with a nature hunt at Langdon Park, starting at 10:30 a.m. until noon.
If you are interested in taking part in, or leading a hike, or if you just want to check out where the hikes are going on in your area, be sure to check out Rainbow Routes Assoication's website for their calendar of upcoming events.
