Hiking: La Montée du Dragon (Parc National du Mont-Mégantic – Secteur Franceville)

Our monthly Friday off came around and the weather worked very much to our favor with the temperature being much cooler and comfortable for hiking. We decided to go back to Mont Mégantic National Park, that we went to two years ago HERE, except this time, we went to the other sector called Franceville to check out other trails. We did an easy to intermediate trail La Montée du Dragon plus a little extra viewpoint. You can find the link to Mont-Megantic National Park HERE.

• Parc National du Mont Mégantic

As with many of these trails, this one is not too clear on the map as its a different name. However, it passes through two different trails and stops at two viewpoints (maybe three if you count one of them as one).

Promenade du Ruisseau

Promenade du Ruisseau

Promenade du Ruisseau is a short and easy trail that is absolutely relaxing and beautiful as the trail runs along a stream the entire way and has very little elevation. Its about the most calming type of trail with a lot of green ferns and lush plants all around. Its a pleasant little trail that leads out to connect to Sentier Des Cimes, which is where we do part of the trail.

Sentier des Cimes

Sentier des Cimes – Parc National du Mont-Megantic

We only did a part of the Sentier des Cimes. Its an intermediate trail since it has a lot of gradual elevation. Its also very beautiful so its a nice little adventure. Since its a SEPAQ, there is an obvious difference in maintenance of the trail compared to the other trail network that we had done for the previous trails this year. We even got to see some leaves starting to change colors.

Viewpoint: Repos Du Dragon

Repos du Dragon

The first viewpoint is Repos du Dragon which would mark the end of the Montée du Dragon trail. It has a little bit of obstruction with the trees and such so the view from the camera doesn’t look too good. However, it is a pretty nice view overall.

Viewpoint: Gardien des Méandres

Gardien des Méandres

Our final destination was one viewpoint over to Garden des Méandres which is almost one kilometre further. The view is a little more open than the previous one and a nice little spot to take a break before deciding to head back.

Halte du Vieux-Barrage

Before cutting back before the connecting point between Sentier des Cimes and Promenade du Ruisseau, there’s a little path over a bridge to the other trail (Sentier des Escarpements, I think) and it should be the Halte du Vieux-Barrage, which has this lovely little path over the stream. Its a nice little spot that we took a few pictures before heading back on the Promenade du Ruisseau to head back to the parking lot.

Overall, Our trail came to about 6 kms altogether and took a little about 2.5 hours. Mont Megantic National Park offers some fabulous trails. The observatory is still closed due to the pandemic, I believe however, the trails whether in that sector or this one has a lot to offer. We already have plans to go back and finish the Sentier des Cimes and some of the other trails when we’re a little more in shape to tackle the intermediate and difficult trails. This area is full of beautiful viewpoints and lush green trails.

Hiking: La Boucle du Mont des Trois-Lacs (Brompton, QC)

After a few weeks of rain and heat wave, we finally managed to get out for another hiking trip. This time, we went back to the same area as the previous hike to do the other trail in Brompton part of the Les Sentiers de L’Estrie. You can see the previous hiking recap HERE.

Brompton: La Boucle du Mont des Trois-Lacs

This trail is a fairly decent length at 4.8 km. Although its ranked Easy, its still pretty much our second hike of the year in heavy humidity weather. Luckily, we did go fairly early so the heat hadn’t hit and it was mostly cloudy as it was getting ready to rain. The hike itself is easy although its a lot of constant steep elevation. A lot of the path is like above where its climbing up steep rocky paths. Its a nice challenge as a second hike and didn’t feel too long. There are three lookout points along the path.

The first lookout point was pretty rewarding as it marked a good part of the beginning which was almost all uphill and was quite exhausting as the warm-up stretch. The view is a bit obstructed but still, the lake is visible and while its hard to capture on the camera well, the view was pretty decent.

The second viewpoint was heading towards the peak at the turn. There’s a pretty intense section going towards this point as well. Its some narrow paths and such. The view is a bit lackluster as this one took a lot of moving along different rocks on the slop to catch this view. We were a bit worried that this was the peak and the view that we were going to have to deal with as it left us wondering where the three lakes were.

Of course, after another fairly exhausting trail around the mountain moving uphill, we get to this final lookout point at the second half of the trail with a roped off boundary to look out at this view with its three lakes. If you look far enough, there’s even a fourth lake in the far distance.

The trail itself is rather surprising that it is an Easy level trail since there was such constant uphill trek and a few steep areas to go up and down on. The path is however fairly straight forward. Its mostly a forest trail with just bushes, trees and shrubs and not a lot of flowers or colorful plants. Its mostly just greenery .

For us, we’re trying to hike closer to home so the Eastern Townships is a good spot for us. I’m not sure if we’ll be coming back to Brompton area for this network of hiking trails since there’s only one more trail here that we haven’t done. I’m thinking we’ll move onto another area for the next one but not sure which one yet.

Hiking: Marais du Kingsbury & Mont Cathedrale

As Montreal starts reopening gradually (well, a lot of stuff is reopened at this point, except for a few things), the things we were looking forward to reopen the most is obviously the parks for hiking and such. Due to weather and the current situation, not all the parks are open but we did find quite a few to choose from. The husband decided that our best chance was to head further from the downtown area to the Eastern Townships to check out a trail part of Les Sentiers de L’Estrie. We’ve done a few other trails from that network before but this year, we’ve been thinking of getting the pass which would pretty much get back its worth if we do three more trails in the network and that sounds like a good deal (and doable, provided the reopening doesn’t launch a second wave of the pandemic).

First Stop: Kingsbury, Le Boucle de la Riviere

Kingsbury

The hiking plans didn’t quite go as we planned even if we did head out the time that we intended, early in the morning. Our first stop as planned was to go to Kingsbury and do a 7.2 km hike. However, the instructions weren’t too good and we soon realized 30 mins in that there was a sign saying that the suspension bridge had collapsed. This trail is pretty much a trail by the water and marshlands. Uncertain of whether there was a detour or not, we decided to go back to the car and head to the next location.

Collapsed suspension bridge

And we were off to the next location pretty much spontaneously. I suggested to go to the next hiking area in this network heading back the way we came so that at least we’ll start later on the actual trail for the day but lower the travel time back a little bit.

Second stop: Brompton – Le Mont Cathedrale

Things not going to plan was apparently the theme of our first hike as we had intended on doing another trail but got mislead to believe we were on the right trail when it wasn’t. Oh well..these things happen and we ended up doing a fairly decent intermediate level hike (not what we had planned since we’re obviously not in that great of shape with the lockdown and such). I’m not quite sure how long the trail actually was but it was quick elevation to Mont Cathedrale so it was rather tiring to do, plus the scene was really lovely.

If you look at the actual website, this trail is supposed to start at another parking location and then not only do the mountain but also a “Ruisseau Ely”, which we saw signs for but didn’t pursue it.

Overall, its a decent trail, in both cases. I’m going to say that this is one of the times where its less maintained than we’ve experienced before. I think its just the current times and the parks and the later than usual opening to not have addressed these things. We had a few hiccups in our plans but still, it was a decent few hours of hiking that we got out of it. Les Sentiers de l’Estrie has had a few places that we’ve done before like, Mont Chapman last year (that also had pretty confusing directions). That’s it for this hiking adventure! We’re looking up the next hike right now and will check in with the next one soon (hopefully).

 

Hiking: CIME Haut-Richelieu (Mont St-Gregoire, Quebec)

This post has been a long time in the making as the hike took place before all the festivals in probably early October. With that said, we did get two hikes in during October as a final hurrah to the season unless the weather holds up and we end up finding some year-round trails that we can still hike on. Its a research currently in progress.

CIME Haut-Richelieu was a rather spontaneous choice on a random morning that we wanted to go somewhere but didn’t quite know where and then I remembered that near an Arbraska in Mont St-Gregoire that I had gone a few years back that there were hiking trails nearby and after some quick research, voila!

Sentier Le Panorama

CIME Haut-Richelieu is a small network of trails. We started out on Le Panorama (blue trail) that took us to a few little landings. It started out relatively gentle but the elevation we climbed in a short distance went up relatively quickly as within 1km of Le Panorama reached the 250m high of its summit at the end of this trail that circled to another trail that looped back to the reception centre. The trail included a lot of steps like these or other ones that were actual steep wooden stairs.

Le Panorama wasn’t especially long but it did link off to some other trails. The first was a little clearing on the trail Les Arenes which had a little view and some spot where a fixture used to be there but was since removed with some info.

It had somewhat of more obstructed view and then there was a little lookout platform as well. However, the yellow path also branches out for a 220m steep walk to its Petit Sommet trail (aka small summit). There had a pretty nice view of the surrounding area.

As you make your way back, you have to double back onto the blue trail which are the other side of some stone steps divided by a barrier. Its important to look carefully at the markers to make sure you are on the right trail path. Of course, its time to reach the top of the summit which also marks the end of this trail. The view has boards on each side that give a distance to other mountains around and in which direction and other information of elevation which is pretty great.

Trail La Carriere (green)

Coming back, we take a slightly longer trail which is 1.4 km long but also gives a little less in elevation which is nice. Its a fairly easy path with some different vegetation. The beginning portion circles around a rather panoramic view of the summit to get out and has one lookout point  on the other side that is fairly nice. It goes through some historic spots and a rocky area where some machinery  used to be there as the info card mentioned.

What is pretty cool about the trail coming back is that in the ending parts of the trail, it has little stations that shows different machinery from back in the day for display. It doesn’t have clear information cards on what its purpose was but still, its a nifty little thing that my husband particularly included as he likes history and mechanics/machinery things. The ending trail pretty much goes through a forest trail.

CIME Haut-Richelieu is a nice little spot to go. We skipped through some of the trails in detail like Les Arenes which was something of a shortcut path as well as La Raccourci which connects in one part the blue and green trails  but we opted to do the whole thing is in full we ended up doing a decent hike of 2.6 kms which is relatively short for our usual hike but as one after a month and a half of break, it felt like a shorter one but still challenging with the quick elevation change, plus, it had some nice scenery.

CIME Haut-Richelieu has winter trails and such, I believe so you can always check it out if you’d like on their website HERE. Plus they have entrance fees so you can check that out as well.

Hiking: Parc National de la Yamaska (La Digue & La Pinede Trail)

Hiking is still top on our list of activities when we get to chance on the weekends. The last weekend, we headed out a little later than normal due to a prior appointment. After some thinking, we decided to go for a closer location and ended up going to Parc National de la Yamaska (Yamaska National Park) which is mostly known for the Yamaska Beach. I hadn’t gone to this park since a really long time ago. At least over 20 years ago, I’d say when I went with my mom and her friends to the beach. However, its been so long that I don’t remember any of it.

One quick walk around, you can see that there are a lot of water sports that are available on site. At the same time, the hiking trails are for both cycling and walking and if it interests you, it seems there are some winter trails here as well.

While we would have wanted to their Grand Tour trail, which is 19+km long, it just felt more like a cycling trail to do in a day rather than walking so in the end, we decided to go via the La Digue trail and connect to the La Pinede Trail. Parc National de la Yamaska is a fairly flat park so there aren’t a lot of elevations or many views either but they do have a few spots that we found. Its not exactly exciting in terms of hikes but it is a good one to kick off the season and warm up a little before hitting anything more intense.

I’m not exactly sure where the La Digue actually starts so I’m just going to share some pictures.

Along the path we found a little lookout path that pretty much looked out at the river. It didn’t really have a lot to see but there was some views of the water sports going on outside.

On the La Digue Trail, there is also a secondary path. The La Digue also leads to the Choiniere Reservoir which is a stone wall on the North Yamaska River. There are some signs that talk about the wildlife there as well and looks out into the best view on the trail (in my opinion).

The rest of the trail looks a bit like this…

That’s really it for this walk. We walked probably around 10km and something. Its a nice little walk although a little lacking on the viewpoints (as mentioned before).

Parc de la Chute-Montmorency (Quebec, Canada)

To celebrate the end of a crazy work phase for myself, we decided to head out of town. Its about two weeks earlier than our normal start of travelling/hiking destinations as most national parks or hiking trails aren’t open yet or doesn’t quite open until Victoria Day. After much debate, I found out that Parc de la Chute-Montmorency had opened in early May which worked perfectly, plus, I hadn’t gone since at least 20 years ago (or more) and my husband had actually never been before and I felt he should go to see it at least once in his life.

Parc de la Chute-Montmorency

Located in the outskirts of Quebec City, Parc de la Chute-Montmorency is a completely different experience outside of going on a tour, which is how I went the first time years ago. Going by ourselves, there are still things still not quite completely open yet like paths and such due to the early season but there are a lot of places to still go. You can choose to take the cable car down to the lower level and there the boardwalk is open to a certain degree until the long wooden staircase, where that is closed access to a part because of the unmelted snow probably. However, you can choose to not take the cable car (like ourselves), and walk the upper path through the overhead suspension bridge over the waterfalls and then to the other side which had a small trail into the forest, various observation points and the long winding 487 steps staircase to get a better angle on the Montmorency Falls, as well as a large field with an orchard to relax.

La Promenade de la Falaise

Walking from the manor, you first go through the boardwalk trail to the suspension bridge. There this beautiful easy walking spot which has some stairs and leads to the first observation deck which is a highlight spotm Le Belvedere de la Baronne. 

Suspension Bridge

Walking across the suspension bridge, its quite the experience to look out into the beautiful scenery around it. One looking down the 83 meter waterfall and then to the other side with some nice view on the water coming down to the falls as well as a good look at the long panaromic staircase we were about to tackle from afar.

The other side of the Park

Once you cross the bridge, there’s an area in the back to look back. Its nice to see the bridge in full as well as the starting point of where the falls start.

From the Panoramic Staircase

While 487 stairs is a pretty big task to take on as a starting location, we still decided to take it one flight of stairs at a time. Its not so bad to descend as expected especially because each observation point or open deck really gave such a different angle to the falls. Its a majestic scene to take in to the say the absolute least. Of course, if you were in the season where the stairs can access the boardwalk below, this is what the boardwalk looks like. There were people on it so I can only guess that it was open from the other side if you took the cable car down. Of course, perhaps at this point, it might be open on both sides as the weather gets better.

Its been decades since I’ve been back and for a returning trip, it was definitely worth it because this is one of Quebec’s landmarks. Its a beautiful natural beauty and in the park behind, there are also some historical elements as well to look at. We didn’t manage to check out the actual hiking trails which should be 2 other ones, one that is open now called Le Sentier des Resurgences (2.5km round-trip) and also one that opens in July 31st (I would expect) as its called Le Sentier du 31 juillet (1km round-trip). Of course, for the more adventurous types, the season also opens later on for Via Ferrata and Ziplining which should be really cool to do across and around the waterfalls.

That’s it for this trip recap for Parc de la Chute Montmorency!

Have you been here before?

Hiking: Le Mont-Megantic Trail – Mont Megantic National Park

Hiking season has officially started for us this year!

The road to the national park

Monday was Victoria Day in Canada so it was a day off and we were able to figure out somewhere fun to hike. Our plans almost did change in the morning but things worked out and we headed off to the Eastern Townships in Quebec to Mont-Megantic National Park.

Its about 2.5 hour drive for us to get there. We always stop at the visitor’s center first. Essential when you are doing a hike to get the bathroom break and also to pay for the fee while getting info on the trails. The lady at the desk was a great help and gave us a good idea of what trails were around us while also telling us the original trail we were going to do was still covered in snow. Usually that wouldn’t be a problem but I haven’t gotten around to getting a new pair of hiking shoes so I was in my running turned walking shoes so the grip wasn’t as good. We ended up going for the Le Mont-Megantic Trail which is a 10 km loop and takes you up to the observatory at the top. The entrance here includes parking and the entrance code to go to the observatory and sanctuary up the hill by car. So, we actually stopped at the top of the trail just before the hill up the observatory which was muddy and snowy in various areas. The trail here is intermediate (although it felt hard for a first hike). Here’s a few pictures and the scenery! Trust me, its so worth it!

The start of the trail! Easy and beautiful with streams running along each side

Close up of the stream

More stream..because I love it

Rocky hills to climb..thank you hiking poles

And more and more snow as we go to the end of the trail

The view at the first lookout

The view at the first lookout

Driving to the Observatory

View at the Observatory

View at the Observatory

Sanctuary

A lovely trek but it was a little tough so the pictures were a little scarce for the path going up. Before I wrap this up, I’d love to share a video I posted on Instagram for the scenery at the Sanctuary since that is the top most part of the area and offered a 360 degree scenery almost.

View this post on Instagram

First #hike of 2018! #Exploring #parcnational #montmegantic in #estrie #easterntownships. #quebec #scenery #landscape #nature #trails

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on May 21, 2018 at 1:07pm PDT

There is a whole bunch of trails at this national park and we’re pretty sure that we’ll come back for some of the other ones later this season. Its a close enough drive and the Eastern Townships are pretty and the national park also has some space observation stuff that we’d love to check out when its not a statutory holiday and they are open.

Not sure when the next hike is but we’re planning on doing a lot more this year so I’ll probably be checking in with another trail that we’ve explored soon!

Vancouver & Kelowna: Vancouver Aquarium & Lynn Canyon Park

We’re finally here! The recap of the final day of vacation over on the Canadian West Coast. For this one, we took up our courage and headed to the Vancouver city central towards Stanley Park to go to Vancouver Aquarium and get an indoor activity before heading out to Lynn Canyon Park & Suspension Bridge. We talked with some of the locals there (my mom’s friends) and they told us that Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge is almost as pretty as Capilano Suspension Bridge which charges more and is higher. This is a great choice for it being free and having just a lower canyon but still really  nice to walk through.

Vancouver Aquarium

As you can see, Vancouver Aquarium has all sorts of stuff, its not just fishes and rays and giant turtles and sharks. It also has monkeys and birds, etc. It is a pretty cool experience. Something else I like is that they don’t do a lot of shows with the animals. Only the dolphins are in these shows. The porpoises and belugas up top are actually in a training session which is like the trainer talks about these animals and how they came here and their story while giving them a little workout explaining why certain moves helps them to make sure they are healthy. In other cases, they also talk about the wildlife preservation centre that people can call if they ever believe that a marine animal is in danger and needs their assistance so that they can get them healthy and send them back to the wild. While I haven’t seen the documentary on Blackfish, I like the fact that it may be because of things like that documentary which make aquariums more aware about their transparency on how they are treating the animals with them.

Regardless of that, I like going to aquariums quite a bit and Vancouver Aquarium isn’t exceptionally different but they have their forte and is a rather educational process. They have a few different species of animals. My favorite is always the jellyfish tank and also seeing the porpoises and also going to the touch tank and getting to touch rays.

Lynn Canyon Park

As I mentioned above, we indeed skipped the really well known Capilano suspension bridge. I have been there before when I was around eight years old. However, in my mind, Lynn Canyon Park was really beautiful. It was a rainy day but everything was absolutely lovely just with the rainforest and the tall trees towering over us. It was a great place to go. And a nice way to round up our vacation with a nice light hike around. It didn’t  take too long but was good enough to give us time and energy to head back to the hotel and pack up for our trip home the next day.

Overall, the Vancouver and Kelowna trip was a lot of fun. We had some fantastic scenery and we had an enjoyable time seeing all the relatives. We got to hike and eat some great food and even fangirl over Storybrooke. There are still a ton of activities we didn’t get to do because of time and hopefully we will return again eventually.

This vacation’s post is done now but as we speak I just got back to work this week after a week off for a lovely staycation where did also went out to do some hiking so that will follow for what seems like Vacation Tuesdays here. 😉 We do have some day trips planned before winter hits so hopefully this segment will go on for at least another few weeks.

Vancouver & Kelowna: Redwood Park & Iona Jetty Regional Park

Welcome to Day 5 of my vacation this year in Vancouver and Kelowna! We are done with the Kelowna portion at this time but head over to Travel on the menu on top and it will go to the previous posts.

Day 5 is the first full day in Vancouver. We ended up doing two walking trails and going for some shopping.

No day starts without breakfast. Next door to us was IHOP. We both have never tried it so we went to give it a go.

After that, we headed out to Redwood Park. My husband’s goal for this trip was to see sequoia trees and we heard there was in this park. It was a rainy day but had a break when we got there so it was a nice cool walk through the woods. The trails were a bit confusing but we ended up figuring out where everything was. It isn’t particularly a huge park but it was a pretty forest and we enjoyed it.

When we left, it started to rain really hard. You will see in the next few days, we won’t care as much and still pack up the days but seeing as we still had time, we made a stop at Mall Metropolis at Metrotown to try to find a raincoat for my husband since he didn’t have a jacket to better prepare for the next few days and ended up with the majority of the stuff on the shopping haul post HERE! Still, what captured me was this awesome Nintendo booth!

Upon leaving the mall, the rain had died down a little more and we had eaten a quick lunch in the food court. We finally decided to head back to Richmond which is where our hotel is and decided to make a stop at Iona Jetty Regional Park.

Iona Jetty is a long walkway stretching out like a pier. It is right next to the landing strip at the airport so you can see planes landing in front of you all the time. There is a small beach there and wildlife to observe. However, most people go for the walk to whatever distance. We did a few kilometers and decided to turn around mostly because we had a family dinner later that night and had to freshen up and head out.

Unfortunately, my phone went crazy and we didn’t take any pictures of the dinner.

This wraps up Day 5 of vacation! 🙂
Day 6 is going to be a bit different because we went to a lot of picturesque places.

Vancouver + Kelowna: Trails, Winery & Family BBQ!

Kelowna is located in the Okanagan Valley area in Canada. It is beautiful and stunning and just absolutely breathtaking to explore. The day after my cousin’s wedding, we only had a late afternoon gathering at my cousin’s home for a barbecue with the family. We decided to head out for some hiking/walking trails to see capture some lovely scenery and get some exercise. We went out to a winery for lunch and then rounded up the day with the barbecue. That is the quick runthrough.

Kuiper’s Peak Mountain Park

Kuiper’s Peak Mountain Park is a short 5 to 10 minute trail. There are mountain bike trails as well. This park’s wildlife is still recovering after a forest fire in 2003.

Bertram Creek Regional Park

Bertram Creek Regional Park also suffered from the forest fire in 2003. It is a casual walking trail along the Okanagan Lake. There’s a beach and a little area to walk out to take pictures.

Cedar Creek Winery Estate

We went to Cedar Creek Winery Estate to have a quick lunch and then went out to walk around. Suffice to say, it was absolutely gorgeous. I’ll be talking about the lunch portion in a separate post.

Family Barbecue

The family gathering was fun and grand. My cousin’s home is beautiful. They had food catered there and they made burgers for everyone as well. There was this cool sparking wine or cider (local) called Bling. It tasted really good.

The view from my cousin’s place is absolutely breathtaking. It kind of makes its a life goal to try to move out to Kelowna eventually just to live in this quiet little city.

That’s it for Day 3!
Drop by again to check out the Cedar Creek Winery Estate Restaurant post later this week!