Day 1: Getting Lost in La Mauricie Park

During our first day in La Mauricie, Michel and I got lost twice. Not sleeping in the woods, fending off wolves with a pocket knife lost but lost getting to the park. La Mauricie National Park is a large park (536 square km) with several entrance points, and we unfortunately drove to the wrong one. And then once we got to the right entrance, we didn’t drive far enough and ended up hiking 5km on a trail that wasn’t even part of the park! You can see Michel in the picture above checking our location on his cell. I better start working on my orientation skills or this will be a long and difficult Quest!

We finally figured it out and arrived at the park early enough for a quick lunch of cheese, saucisson and baguette in the Rivière à la Pêche pavilion. I may not be adept with a map but I sure pack a mean lunch. We had brought our snowshoes but the trail was sufficiently tapped down for us to only use our crampons.

Rated difficult, the Lac-Solitaire trail starts with a steep climb of several kilometers up a mountain. Good thing I had trained a bit

before the trip. The 5.5km trail of Lac-Solitaire is very well maintained and easily

identifiable (important as I have a tendency to get lost). At the top of the mountain we had a great view of the Lac Solitaire and La Mauricie area.

We took a well-deserved rest on the Park’s chair reds.

Fortunately, the way down was much easier and faster.

Other than getting initially “lost”, it was a great start to our visit of La Mauricie Park!