UKC

Hey all. In September I'm flying to Toronto for a couple of weeks. 

The plan is to rent a car and take our tent and sport climbing gear. I'm just starting now to look at where would be cool for us to check out.

Can anyone recommend any good spots for camping and low-grade sport climbing (we range from 5a-6c) within a few hours drive from Toronto?

Cheers!

Depending what you define as "a few" you could check out these couple of areas near Montreal (about 5 to 6hrs from Toronto). Great climbing and camping. 

https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2019/10/15/montagne-du-tranchant/

https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2019/10/14/lac-long/

Stretching the word "few" even further (but you'd be more than halfway if you visited the above) perhaps our favourite sport crag on the east side of North America:

https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2019/10/11/kamouraska-carling-dont-make-cr...

Cheers, Dom 

Check the smoke plots, its a really bad year in North America

This looks better than the canadian fire maps at plotting smoke https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents

or https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/ - a 2 day smoke forecast

Not sure about the camping situation, but if you’re looking for something a bit closer (~2 hours) Metcalfe Rock is a popular crag for Toronto-based sport climbers. There’s plenty of routes across a good range of grades and the approach is only 5-10 minutes from the carpark. I noticed couple of small loose blocks when I climbed there in May, but from what I’ve heard the rock quality is generally better than the Milton area crags which can be a bit sketchy.

The Niagara Escarpment- limestone -  is close to Toronto.  There are a number of different crags along this.  They were originally developed as trad climbing, but now offer sport routes and mixed routes.  Closest to Toronto are Rattlesnake Point, Buffalo Crag and Mt Nemo.  It's mostly single pitch routes. A bit polished. Further north are other newer areas that were primarily developed as sport areas.  The routes are described in a two volume guidebook.  

I have climbed at the crags I mentioned - I was a grad student at a nearby university but in the 70s before the sport routes were developed.

There are also likely sport crags to the east of Toronto - lots of Canadian Shield granite.  There is a big 400ft cliff called Bon Echo about three hours from Toronto but it's predominantly trad climbing, but it's likley other nearby areas have been developed as sport climbs. There are several FB groups for Ontario climbers and you could probably get info there

Thanks everyone for your replies.

In the UK I'm a big fan of using the RockFax app for finding crags on the go / approach notes etc. Anyone know of anything similar for this part of Canada? Or what websites / guidebooks are best to use?

Thanks again.

Mountain Project has pretty good coverage for Canada  

Cheers, Dom 

thecrag.com covers the Niagara Escarpment area pretty well (and probably further afield too). May also be worth checking with the Ontario Alliance of Climbers’ crag status pages to check whether specific crags are open/require permits to enter or have local ethics (no slinging cedars etc): https://www.ontarioallianceofclimbers.ca/crag-status/