Scarborough Bluffs: Under the White Cliffs to Guild Park

May through October gives you a dry shoreline path and warm water at Bluffer’s beach; September and October add autumn colour in Gates Gully and far fewer people. Morning light falls on the white cliff faces and makes them glow. After heavy rain or in spring high water, parts of the shoreline path can be wet or washed out.

Bluffer’s Park sits at the bottom of Brimley Road; the TTC runs a seasonal weekend and holiday bus there from Kennedy station, and there are paid lots. On summer weekends the lots fill early and police close the road down once they do, sometimes by 9 a.m. The Doris McCarthy trailhead is on Ravine Drive just south of Kingston Road, and Guild Park is on Guildwood Parkway; both are on TTC bus routes from Kennedy station. Check the TTC trip planner for current routes.

The Bluffs are made of loose glacial sand and clay and they are still eroding, sometimes in sudden collapses. Do not climb them, do not stand at the top edge, and do not linger at the foot of a bare face. Fenced areas are closed for a reason and the city can fine you for entering them. People have died here.

The shoreline between Gates Gully and Guild Park is a mix of gravel path, boardwalk and stretches over armour stone and pebble beach. Wear shoes with grip, carry water (there is none on the shoreline), and in winter bring traction cleats: the Gates Gully path is steep and ices over.

The full walk is long for small legs. With children, do Bluffer’s beach in the morning, then the Doris McCarthy Trail down to the lake and back (about two kilometres, with a steep climb out), and skip the long shoreline stretch. Guild Park’s ruins make a good separate stop by car.

Bluffer’s Park has seasonal food at the marina and washrooms, and Guild Park has facilities at the Guild Inn, but the shoreline in between has nothing. Pack a lunch and eat it on the rocks under the cliffs; Kingston Road has plain neighbourhood places if you need something after.

There is little reason to stay out here: the Bluffs are an easy day out from anywhere downtown. Stay near Union Station or in the east end along the Queen Street East streetcar, which gets you closer to the start and back into the city’s restaurants at night.

The best views of the Bluffs are not from the top, where fences and trees hide them, but from the water’s edge looking up. That is why this route spends its time at the bottom. From the foot of Gates Gully, look west and you see the tall, fluted faces toward Bluffer’s Park, the section that gave the Cathedral Bluffs their name.