Algonquin Park Galeairy Lake August 2023
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- Created: Thursday, 31 August 2023 22:27
Algonquin Park Galeairy Lake August 2023
We started the trip at the Galeairy Lake access point, which was just a few kilometers outside the Algonquin Park East Gate. In previous years, we parked our cars at the access point parking lot, actually belonging to the local municipality, and never had any problems.
This year there was something new. There were two big new signs at the parking lot, and one indicated that for Ontario Park users “overnight parking can be found at 41 Hay Creek Road”. We would have ignored the sign if another camper did not ask us about it since it almost became a habit to park there and go.
We then called the park office, and they said for overnight we should park at 41 Hay Creek Road, which would require a ~200m walk back. Eventually we parked at 41 Hay Creek as we did not want to get a ticket, etc. However, some canoe campers might have just parked their cars at the access point, as we would have done the same if we did not notice the sign. Hopefully we will have more info on this for the next year.
For the 1st day, we would like to find a nice campsite since we would stay there for 4 nights. In our target area that would require about 2 hour paddling, there were 3 nice sites. To our surprise, we found 2 out of the 3 were occupied, even though we started on a Wednesday, supposed to be one of the least busy days. Last year, all 3 were unoccupied. Fortunately we got the 2nd best campsite out of the 3, and actually some even liked our campsite better than the supposedly 1st best, after some of us got a chance to have a look on the latter.
For the 2nd day, we paddled from our campsite by a short distance, then took a 100m portage over the dam between Galeairy and Rock, and paddled in Rock Lake.
Having lunch at the end of Galeairy Lake close to the dam (portage) between Galeairy and Rock, after spending the morning exploring Rock Lake on the day outing.
On the 3rd day we paddled around Galeairy Lake, exploring the area close to our campsite, and enjoyed fine weather before the afternoon rain.
Views of Night Lake from a portage between Galeairy and Night on the day outing. Night Lake was an alternate route from Galeairy to Penn Lake, albeit with a much longer portage.
Views of our two canoes and the end of a deep bay on Galeairy Lake, from the portage between Night to Galeairy on the day outing.
Upon returning from the day outing, the views at our campsite before the rain began.
On the 4th day, our last full day, we planned to hike the Booth’s Rock trail, a 5.1km loop with excellent views of Rock Lake. To get to the trail, we paddled from our campsite on Galeairy, and then got over the 100m portage between Galeairy and Rock, and paddled to an unofficial trail head. On Rock Lake, we battled strong head wind, and almost decided to turn back, but eventually we made it to the trail head. But the hard work was worth it, the views from the lookouts were excellent, and we enjoyed it.
Cal, Lisa with Bali the dog, and Xuan, on top of the Booth’s Rock trail.
Lisa with Bali the dog, and Tjandra, on top of the Booth’s Rock trail.
On the 5th day, we paddled back to the Galeairy Lake access point, and then drove back to Ottawa, on a day that might be the hottest of the trip.