Iain Leitch Photography

I wanted to get one more large hike in before winter, so I went back to Frontenac Provincial Park. I had been once already this year, back in September. That time I went solo, as my wife was away on a trip. This time, I was able to bring my wife on the hike. We got a day pass from the Ottawa Public Library (check out your local library — they have so much stuff!) and booked our DVP over the phone, as I couldn’t figure out how to book one with the library pass online. We left Ottawa around 8:45am and got to the parking lot in the park just before 11. We parked at the Salmon Lake parking lot. From there, we hiked down the Corridor Trail until it met up with the Dedication Trail, which we went South on. At the end of that trail, we turned right and continued down towards Doe Lake. From there, we went around Doe Lake and met up with the Corridor Trail again, which took us back to the Salmon Lake parking lot. In total, it was 13.25 km in length and took us 3 hours and 36 minutes to comple...

 The second hike of the day was in Charleston Lake Provincial Park. The write up of the first hike can be found here . This park is mainly front-country camping but has a few backcountry campsites along this trail. The trail is 10 km long, but due to how busy the trailhead parking lot was, I had to park 600 m away at a different trailhead and walk back to the trailhead. The first section of the trail is shared with the Quiddity Trail, which is a short 600 m trail that leads to a lookout. The first maybe 400 m or so is wheelchair accessible, as it is a bed of level, smooth gravel with two boardwalk sections. Once you get to the Tallow Rock Bay Trail, it splits in two as the trail is a loop—you can choose either side to go down. I picked the side closest to Charleston Lake to start with, for no other reason than the fact that a couple had picked the opposite side a short while ago and I didn’t want to follow them. I recommend you pick this side of the trail to start with first, as ...

 Another weekend another trail, in this case two in one day but you can find part two here.   The first trail I did was Wolf and Hawk Loop in the Jones Creek West property of the park. This was my first time visiting Thousand Islands National Park, so I wasn't sure what to really expect. The park is well known as a boating park, as most of the islands are only accessible with a private boat. The park does have some chunks of mainland property as well, which is where these trails can be found.   The trailhead for these two trails (which is really just a loop with a there and back portion) is found on county road 5 just off of highway 401. The closest exit from the highway is 675. Parking is just on the shoulder of the road, but I would recommend you park on the east side as the shoulder is wider.  The trail as a whole is just under 8km which I did in 2 hours. There was 188m in elevation.  I seemed to be the first person on the trail that day as the amount of...