Gatineau Park by the Back Door

Glosette Girl and I used to go for walks in Gatineau Park all the time when we lived on the Quebec side of the border. The park is huge (361 square kilometeres) with many day use and over night trails.

I made it my mission to try all the day-use ones. Some are gentle. Some are rough and tumble. And some have historical plaques or sites. Personally, I just like walking in the woods. It's so peaceful!

Paradoxically, around this time of year, when the leaves are changing colour and many would say the park is at its most beautiful, accessing the park can be a bit of a pain it the butt. There are just too many tourists descending on the same few trails and lookouts hoping to snap their photo of "Canadiana".

The standard tourist route is to take the main road through the park, the Champlain Parkway, and stop at a few of the lookouts and maybe do a short hike (probably Pink lake) on the way up to the Champlain lookout, which overlooks Ottawa. It's a nice route but again the swarms of tourists take away from the experience.

Recently though, I discovered a new trail on the  north eastern edge of the park: Brown Cabin Trail.

Orange + yellow leaves = fall. Actually its been so mild there's still a lot of green...

Think of the park as a wedge. Most people drive up the middle to the lookout. To access the Brown Cabin trail you have to drive around the wedge, up Highway 5, and stop just before you get to the pretty village of Wakefield (side note - if Glosette Girl and I hadn't decided to become urbanistas we probably would have ended up here. Haha I probably would be walking around in mud splattered overalls after a day of harvesting up my organic crops right about now).

It's only just over 30 minutes from our house to get to the trail head, which is amazingly short amount of time to get to an a trail in an almost wild trail like this one. Plus, we were practically all alone! 

Showing off the latest in wood walking styles

Singing about Star Wars in the woods

The hike itself was two hours (6 km) roundtrip at Margot-speed. And there is a 4-season cabin with a wood burning fireplace you can rent in the middle to boot! Hmmm I may have to try that this winter...