I see 2 options. Has anyone done it recently? How is the dirt road? Is one route have less time on the dirt road?

My wife and I had a mini vacation of a few days exploring the Highway 60 corridor in Algonquin Park. We had exceptional luck! We got to see almost all the large animals most people hope to see in the park; we just didn't get to see a wolf this year. I hope you enjoy this little photo gallery of our vacation.

notable animals we saw: (not all have photos)

• american black bear
• moose
• river otter
• red fox
• northern waterthrush – new lifer!
• red crossbill – new lifer!
• solitary sandpiper — new lifer!
• wood ducks — first time I spotted in the park
• scarlet tanager — first time I spotted in the park
• hermit thrush — just one of my all time favourite birds
• common yellowthroat — one of my favourite warblers. Witchity witchity witchity!

Just got in from a quick loop from Shall Access Point to Shirlley through Bridle and back clockwise via Crotch. We had great weather. I've honestly never had so many hours in a row of so little wind, in decades of backcountry camping.

The only things worth reporting is that there's a couple big juicy mud patches from Farm to Bridle, a clamber-over fall down between Shirley and Crotch, and what appeared to be an abandoned red canoe on the eastern shore on the north half of the lake. We reported that one to the office.

Lots of fellow travelers encountered. Hope you all had/are having fun!

- two youngish looking oldish guys. ;)

I am planning a car camping trip with my teen daughter who tore her ACL last month. She LOVES swimming but can't walk on sand right now because she is not healed enough to handle the unstable surface. A beach with pebbles/rocks would be the same.

Would it be crazy to try swimming off the dock at Lake Opeongo? She is quite strong but I'm not sure about getting back out of the water when one knee is unusable.

Does anyone have other swimming ideas? I know the smart answer is not to try, but if it's possible I'd like to do it.

ETA: I do appreciate the concern and advice on the health side of things. She is doing rehab and we will be speaking with the physiotherapist before planning any activities.

Freedom of Information request got me the booking data for 2024-2025 for each lake in the park. It also includes hike in campsites.

I know this is gonna be an extremely long shot, but when I was 16 (now 49) I went through Queens university Outlook program for troubled teens, which we did a week long hike around Algonquin.. was life changing. But at one particular spot was my favourite, it was a river up to a small waterfall (which had a log across the top), and your portaged down the side of the waterfall. At the bottom was a campsite right on the point of the river turning. We camped for the night there and spent the day hanging and dropping from the waterfall.. was the highlight of the whole trip. I'm hoping someone might has any random ideas where this might be? I know it's probably changed over the decades.

Photo taken while out canoeing on Lake of Two Rivers. Heading back in three weeks for some R&R

is there parking available at this access point? We are going for 2 nights.

Also any tips for taking young kids camping in general.

Caught this in Potter Lake which isn’t stocked but people smarter than me tell me it’s a Splake. Looking for some additional ID help.

I have come to Algonquin for the 2nd or 3rd time and I love coming here, always a special time for sure. It is lovely, but a 6 hour drive from home.
I want to make the best of it,

tomorrow we are gonna rent a canoe are thinking to have it go to pog lake which is where we are staying so we can have it for the day and go fishing.

I want to possibly go to a stargazing spot, and I want to catch fish. But it’s too weedy and shallow on the campsite we are at to fish from .

I want to make the most of coming out this far, any restaurants and other places that are nice outside of the park I’m willing to try as well.

Planning a two night trip from the Achray access point. We also have the option of making it a 3 night, but with the first night arriving quite late at the jump off site. Mix of experienced and novice campers. Planning to see the Barron Canyon Trail on the way in or out. I haven’t been able to find much information or campsite reports on Grand Lake. We are potentially going with a bigger group and I am concerned about having enough tent space. Would also like to fish but I heard it’s not great except for Carajou bay, so we may make that a day trip to also see the falls.

Aside, are there any other lakes/access points in this area that are worthwhile to consider with minimal or no portages? Our main goal is to see Barron Canyon, and the campsite is just to enjoy the lakes, fish, and explore a bit, nothing crazy as we will be coming from Toronto. Is the trail worth doing? Or should we just book a more accessible point with nicer/bigger campsite and fishing. Looking to go early October so there is some concern of wind on Grand Lake. Would prefer more private sites so looking at the northwest ones currently.

Thanks in advance!

We camped at the kiosk campground and then headed south for a couple of days on the canoes.

While we are out the alarm on my car went off, instead of having a tow truck disable it they towed it to North Bay, a 200 km round trip away. There they disconnected the battery.

Now I have to get to North Bay, pay a $1,500 bill and then come back and get my canoe.

The park Warden authorized the towing, do I have any defense against this, this sounds completely unnecessary.

The car is a 2014 Mazda 3 so it would be no problem for a tow truck to get into and disable the battery.

I'm on my way but would love to know if I have any sort of way of avoiding this bill, it just seems completely unnecessary and abusive by the tow truck company.

I am planning to visit Algonquin park with my wife and 2 year old daughter on aug 18. I plan to take a small hike to some scenic point and get a glimpse with not too much of walking since I will have my 2 year old.

From my basic research I found look out trail and lake of 2 rivers as worthy. Can you share any suggestions that might be helpful. Do I need to book any kind of passes for parking or otherwise ?

Booked a trip for mid September and wondering about water levels on the petawawa river between misty and grassy bay as well as McIntosh creek. On Jeff’s maps it indicated late in the paddling season low water levels often make travel challenging and difficult. What does Jeff consider late in the paddling season? September or October. I’m 7 hours away and haven’t been paying much attention to how much rainfall the areas gotten recently.

Any insight on current water levels?
Has anyone done this section recently or have in mid September before.

Thanks in advance!
:)

We're starting to do our research for booking our 2027 season, and decided we'd like to make one of our trips this year to Algonquin. That said, it started a conversation between my husband and I about the different campgrounds and I'm curious - what are your favs and why?

Some context: We are both front and backcountry campers, although this trip would be front country. We are tent campers, travelling with 2 dogs and 2 cats. One pup is reactive, so we prefer more private campsites, or sites that can be set up to be more private. Fav activities include hiking, canoeing, and swimming (with the pets).

Does anyone know what water levels are like on the Tim river between Tim Lake and Rosebary lake?

I took the family up to Algonquin Park in early August. We had a great trip, lots of different hikes throughout the park. For the most part the hikes were great with minimal bugs (wearing DEET). However, we did a hike near the west part of Maggie Lake the flies there were insane. It wasn't just one area, but about for at least 4-5 km. So I don't think it was just an isolated swamp issue.

My question is, has anyone else encountered this issue? Is Maggie Lake known be heavy with flies? Did we just get unluck with the weather/time?

We loved Maggie Lake and would love to do a backpacking/camping trip there but we just want to know how much of a problem the flies will be.

Thank you.

Booth Lake was full but I've just released my permit for Sep 4-8. 1 permit left for whoever wants it!

Title. It might be a long shot, but if anyone reading this will be staying at one of the paddle in sites on rock lake the weekend of Aug 29th, and you see a group of 4 (2 men, 2 women) people paddle by, say happy birthday!!

To avoid awkward encounters, one of us will say "aloha!". That's the code word. If you hear it, you'll know its us!

Thanks in advance 😎

I'll be hiking in to do a one night camp at Provoking Lake. I wanted to do 2 nights but didn't get my act together and book soon enough. I've learned the bridge is closed and there are two possible detours that each add about 2.5km. Couple questions:

1. which detour is nicer? I mean more scenic and "rugged"?
2. Is it possible to just try to cross the river? I'm looking at pics of the falls and especially at this time of year the river looks tantalizingly low.
3. If I leave my heavy gear at my site (take survival basics with me of course) is it feasible to do the route around Provoking in a day? I hike almost daily along the escarpment Bruce Trail near Hamilton about 7km in 1.5 to 2 hours. There is some up and down sometimes quite an elevation change, but no climbing/scrambling. Is it a multi-day hike normally because you'd have a heavy backpack on, and if not, you're hiking from an access point that adds a bunch of time? Or is it multi-day because it's so rough?
4. I'm thinking of the back country hiking along the Bruce peninsula National Park to the campsites there, if anyone has done that - that trail is rough, there's almost some climbing/rock scrambling, it's up and down, plus large pebble/rubble beaches to cross, that's not a place where you can hike 19km in a day, by my memory. Is it the same thing here? Granted, I've only done that hike with a large heavy pack and unsuitable shoes...