Hiking Gatineau Park - King Mountain

This is definitely a tougher hike than Pink Lake, though the view from the top is absolutely worth it! This hike is listed as 1.9 kilometres and challenging.  The whole route took us about 45 minutes, we ran some of the route, and stopped at the top to take some photos. It definitely is a tough route, the first half is completely uphill, with a lot of stairs as well as hill, and the second half is almost all downhill, with a few stairs.

The trail leads you atop the Eardley Escarpment, where you can see across the river to Ottawa which is pretty neat.

On our way up 

Our view from the top

If you're ever in Gatineau Park it's an awesome route to check out, however it is a fairly popular route so it can get quite busy on the weekend, I recommend going early in the morning or during the week.

What's your favourite hiking trail?

Hiking Gatineau Park - Pink Lake

I did the Pink Lake loop last summer with a group of friends, it's a very easy hike with a small chunk of the route being on a boardwalk to protect the delicate ecosystem that is Pink Lake and to make it wheelchair friendly. The route is 2.5 kilometres long and listed as a moderate hike on the Gatineau Park website. The hike took us about 45 minutes and we strolled along at an easy pace, stopping to take photos and check out different views of the layered lake throughout.

The route is fairly flat and takes you around the entire perimeter of the lake. One half has a considerable amount of uphill  and stairs, while the remainder of the route is nice and easy.

Pink lake is definitely one of the coolest lakes I've ever seen. It is a "meromictic" lake, meaning the water at the top of the lake and the water at the bottom of the lake never mix, giving the lake a somewhat layered effect, and meaning that the bottom of the lake has 0 oxygen. You can read more about this lake here.

Although you can't see the layers in this photo, you get an idea of how pretty the terrain is and how close you can get to the water to see the layers!

Summer 2016 - Trip 1: Cape Chignecto

Mr. and I have already begun planning our trips for the summer! For those of you that don't know, my boyfriend went as my canoe partner for my Algonquin trip last summer; we went as friends, but  after 4 days in the wilderness we decided to become more than friends, and it's been amazing ever since.

Okay, enough cheesy romance, back to the point - hiking. We're planning to do the 50km loop at Cape Chignecto, it will be our first hiking only trip, as we have both only ever done canoe and portaging trips. We plan to hike every weekend starting in March to mentally and physically prepare. 

Right now, our plan is to stay in the cabins rather than the campsites (I'm still a little scared to camp with just 2 of us at the back country sites as opposed to 6 of us.)  So we plan to head into the park around noon, hike to the Arch Gulch cabin for our first night which is 8.5km, then onto Seal Cove for night two, which is about 23km and then hike out which will make our last day about 20km. 

We're in the process of planning out some meals, we don't want to go the route of freeze dried this year, but rather easy and filling meals that we can make with little to no gear and doesn't weigh us down. 

I've been googling photos of this route and it looks absolutely breathtaking! I cannot wait! Once we iron out the details of food and gear, I will make another Cape Chignecto post.

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Have you done this route? What are your favourite on the go meals?

Algonquin Park - July 31 to August 3, 2015

Going into my second trip, I focused on things I could improve on from last year, namely the lack of paddling time. The group was nearly identical to the group from 2014, with the exception of my canoe partner.

We decided to tackle the Eastern side of Algonquin Park, entering at the Grand Lake - Achray Access Point.

Day 1 - Achray Jump off to Stratton Lake

One thing I love about Algonquin is the campsites are first come first serve, you just reserve a spot on the lake, then pick one when you're out on the water. At Frontenac you had to pre-book the exact spot. We started off day 1 with an easy portage alongside the dam, then a leisurely paddle until we found a site we loved on Stratton Lake.

We did, of course, have a hiccup on our first day. I had a bit of a space cadet moment and had folded part of our map over, so we ended up paddling an extra 45 minutes looking for the portage to Stratton Lake. Whoops! Now we know, KEEP THE MAP FULLY OPEN!

Night 1 campsite

We were so excited to have a relaxed first day! Our food for this trip was all freeze dried and dehydrated meals, so nothing exciting to mention foodwise. 

Day 2 - Stratton Lake to Opalescent Lake

We had originally planned to follow this loop, coming out just past Marie Lake, but after reading some reviews about "heart attack hill" we opted to detour around to Opalescent then double back.

This route took us Stratton to St. Andrews, St. Andrews to High Falls, High Falls to the Cascades, the Cascades to Barron then to Opalescent Lake. It took us about 6 hours to complete the trek, but as we spent most of the time on the water, the portages were way less stressful. The whole day was full of breathtaking scenery.

One of the day's beautiful spots

Level 1 rapids going into the Barron

We had wanted to try the level 1 rapids going into the Barron but sadly the water levels were pretty low and we had to hop out and pull the canoes through as they were sitting too low when we were in them. It still beat having to unload and reload 200 metres later!

Campsite day 2

Campsite day 2, beautiful view of the lake

Our site on Opalescent lake was perfect for swimming, so once we arrived we hopped in for a quick refresh after another long day. There was only one other group of campers on this lake so it was extremely quiet.

Day 3 - Opalescent Lake to Johnston Lake

To avoid completely backtracking our route, we went through Ooze Lake to High Falls, then High Falls to St. Andrews, St. Andrews to Stratton then to Johnston.  Since it was a long weekend, Stratton Lake and High Falls were pretty busy. After sitting in our canoes for about 15 minutes waiting to get through one of the portages (I forget exactly which one now), we decided to check out a waterfall that was just to the left of us. We tied up our canoes and hiked up to the top to set up for lunch and explore.

This was another fairly long day, but with all the paddling it didn't feel that long, though our arms were pretty exhausted once we hit Stratton Lake, it felt like it went on forever! This trip took us about 5 hours to complete.

The waterfall at the top, not the part you can see from the lake.

As we got onto Johnston Lake it started to rain, so we hightailed it to the closest site from the launch. We were the only canoe campers on the lake, but we could see a fire from a group of backpack campers across the lake. It was so quiet and secluded, we heard moose calling across the lake! It rained most of the night (I'm starting to see a trend in our trips...) so we quickly packed up and headed for home in the morning.

Sunset on Johnston Lake

Day 4 - Johnston Lake to Home

We opted to go back through Stratton Lake rather than portage over to Achray Lake, just to get some last minute paddling in before we called it a day. It was a good call too, because we ended up seeing a ton of ducks and their babies. 

Not the greatest picture, but a family of ducks crossing ahead of our canoes

I really enjoyed Algonquin, and absolutely want to tackle different segments of it over the next couple years. 

What are your thoughts on Algonquin Park? Have you done this route?

Frontenac Park - August 9-12, 2014

This trip was the first back country trip I planned and went on without having someone more experience plan and set everything up. We went as a group of 6, with experiences ranging from 1-2 trips to never having done anything remotely similar to a back country trip. I was a little bit overzealous when planning the trip, not taking into account everyone's skill level and sent us on more of a portage than canoe trip.

Day 1 - Big Salmon Lake to Little Salmon Lake

Our first day was definitely the easiest, so the less experienced could get eased into what was about to happen! We got off too a little bit of a rocky start on day 1, we missed the portage trail and accidentally headed down the hiker's trail (to be fair, when we went back to discover the sign, it was almost behind the tree so it was hard to spot.) Luckily this was our shortest day so it didn't put too much of a damper on our trip. 

Day 1 consisted of a brief paddle across the point to our first portage - 974 metres which is listed as easy/moderate with 1 hill on Frontenac Park's website. We then had a 15 minute paddle to our site. 

View from our campsite on day 1

Lunch on Day 1 consisted of peanut butter and jam sandwiches and some fruit. Our dinner on the first night was hamburgers and salad. 

Day 2 - Little Salmon Lake to Devil Lake

Day 2 tested everyone's limits, it was brutal! The amount of portaging was definitely more than everyone was prepared for. We ended up travelling a total of 15 kilometres on foot and spent about an hour on the water. 

Portages for day 2 consisted of and 856 metres listed as moderate with a hill, 503 metres listed as easy, 977 metres listed as easy to moderate with 2 hills and a flat and an 898 metre listed as moderate to difficult with a 3 stage hill. To conserve energy, all portages were done in two trips rather than 1 big overbearing trip. We may have hiked more than necessary but the trek back to the remainder of our gear gave us a chance to enjoy the scenery we missed lugging our stuff past the first time.

The last portage was definitely the worst! We weren't overly sure what a 3 stage hill was, but we quickly discovered it was something we were not mentally prepared for. The entrance to this hill was very jagged and footing was iffy. We typically single portaged the canoes and the other 3 would carry packs and such. With the beginning of this hill we decided to 2 person portage the canoe in order to prevent any injuries. We then traveled the rest of the portage as a group, joking about reach bronze, silver and gold levels as we conquered the various hills throughout this portage. We made it to our campsite exhausted but proud of our accomplishments.

The beginning of the 3 stage hill

Second night's campsite

Day 2's meals were toasted granola with apple and chocolate chips for breakfast, hummus or peanut butter wraps with beef jerky and granola bars and cheese for lunch then pasta with sundried tomatoes, salami and cheese. We snacked throughout the day on trail mix and Clif bars.

Day 3 - Devil Lake to Little Clear Lake

After a somewhat solid night of sleep, we awoke prepared to tackle our 2nd last day of the trip. We were still somewhat exhausted, since in Frontenac Park you must set up your tents on the tent pad, which is essentially a box of dirt packed so hard, concrete is probably softer than what you have to sleep on.

Our third day ended up getting cut short, we had planned on a long paddle down Big Clear Lake then some portaging and paddling to get into Little Clear. However, after one of us got stuck by a bee while portaging the canoe, we decided to stop for lunch at this gorgeous point on Big Salmon Lake, after the portage from Labelle Lake. While we were stopped, one of the girls checked the weather on her phone to ensure we were still going to be dealing with sunshine and cool breezes. We weren't so lucky. There were warnings for a massive storm system coming in, with high speed wind gusts, potential for hail and a substantial amount of rain. We still had about another hour and a half to get to our designated campsite, leaving us with about a 3 hour trek home the next morning in this ridiculous storm. We called the park office and found out there was an available site for us to camp on Big Salmon, leaving us only a paddle in the storm to get home the next morning, so we paddled across to this site and got ready to brave the storm.

Cooking our fresh caught fish over the fire

Day 3's meals consisted of oatmeal, Mr. Noodle soup, and spamburger helper (essentially Kraft Dinner with Spam). This was definitely my least favourite day for meals and I won't ever eat spamburger helper again!

Day 4 - Big Salmon to Home

The storm hit us at 6 a.m. We were woken up by a torrential downpour soaking our tents, so we hightailed it out of there, probably packing in record time! We were on the water by 6:30, not bothering to eat as we only had a short (or so we thought) paddle across the lake. Turns out winds going against you make what could be a short paddle twice as long. We finally got off the water about 2 hours later, soaked to the core. My partner and I had changed in the car before heading into the park so we were super excited to change into these fresh clothes as soon as we hopped in the car to head home and dry out our soggy packs and gear.

All in all, I enjoyed the trip, it was a little tougher than I had expected and I think the newbies were a little overwhelmed. I don't think I'll go back to Frontenac Park again, simply because of the tent pads. I understand why they are there, but at the same time I can't justify lugging a thicker mat pad just to compensate for the concrete. It was a gorgeous trip, and some of the views alone would make it worth going back for a day hike.

Have you ever visited Frontenac Park?