Algonquin Provincial Park’s The Lookout and the Trail

[Read in 4 mins.]

Summer here in Ontario, Canada means everyone is out enjoying the great outdoors. Water activities, seasonal trails, road trips, and outdoor festivals are all happening. One of the most famous provincial park in Ontario and the most visited one is the Lookout Trail at Algonquin Provincial Park. I love views from the top and watch the horizons unfold before me. This is why when there’s a lookout then I’d wanna go and hike to reach the top.

Getting There

The Lookout Trail is right in the heart of the park on highway 60. Coming from Huntsville which is the east of the trail, it takes about one hour on highway 60. The other way of getting to the trail is if you’re coming from the west side from Ottawa. I came from Huntsville and to be honest, I made sure I come here though it was out of the way. It became a detour as part of my stop on my road trip to Manitoulin Island and it was so worth it! The view was amazing and I’m here to tell you all about it!

From the west side, before reaching the lookout, you’ll first see the visitor’s centre. Feel free to park and explore. There’s a viewing area for wildlife spotting and also a small section of wooden trails that leads to a mini wooden gazebo. The distance between the visitor’s centre and the lookout is only about 5 minutes so east side folks can also come visit. Open all year round, here you can find all the information about the park and also there’s a list of what animal was sighted during that day. When you’re done quickly head over to the trail to get your amazing lookout experience!

Algonquin Provincial Park

Algonquin Provincial Park is an Ontario provincial park with many trees, shrubs, rock formations, rivers, and lakes perfect for escaping the city life and spending time with nature.

I’m going to give you a little bit of a geology background of how the Algonquin Provincial Park came to be. It was during the ice age when multiple cooling and warming periods occurred over a thousand of years. The glaciers melted towards northern Ontario and the last sheet of ice. This sheet of ice brought along boulders and ‘big pebbles’ that you’ll see as you hike Algonquin. In addition to the boulders, the soil consists of sand grains and even finer particles of rock and this type of soil is know as ‘glacial till’.

Erosion is the main reason on how the Lookout emerged. The process of wind, rain, and snow worn away the surface layer of the landscape and exposed with the help of some living agents that live there. Lichens, fungi, and algae all contributed to break rocks and boulders thus more erosion. The erosion kept happening and eventually shaped the what we now call the Lookout. Even now, those three weather agents and living creatures are exposing the rocks which changes the Lookout over time. As this area is important to the community as a provincial park, extreme measures are performed to maintain the look by undercutting. If not maintained, the cliff will be over-exposed and the top will eventually fall over time.

The Lookout Trail

The Lookout Trail is a 2.1 kilometre loop. An average hiker can take about 38 to 40 minutes to complete the whole loop. Honestly, I’m not the most fit person nor I’m a veteran hiker but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I probably took more time than the average to hike up. No regrets though because the view was absolutely gorgeous! So if you’re a seasoned hiker, good then you’ll be faster than me.

You can grab a brochure at the entrance of the trail to learn more about the geology of the park and the lookout. This is a great way to get more information about the park while hiking to get the full experience. The hike is sectioned to 9 posts and each post is detailed in the guide.

As you hike up, you’ll be see many boulders from rock formation, pine trees, maple trees, and shrubs as part of the young Algonquin forest. When you encounter a post, you can read the history of the formation of the Algonquin landscape all the way to its present state. You’ll pass by post 1 through 5 then you’ll reach your destination. Post 5 and Post 6 are the top most elevated posts.

The Lookout

You will reach the Lookout once you reach post 5 of the trail post. In an elevation of about 517 metres, you’ve already covered at least 1.1 km. When I reached the top, I was mesmerized by the view! It’s so refreshing to see greenery nature scenes and it makes you appreciate life. I reached here after 20 minutes of hike and that’s with photo-taking stops as well.

The lookout spans post 5 and post 6 which has the highest elevation of approximately 525 metres. You can easily spend a good amount of time here taking in the scenic view. You’ll see the three main lakes of the park in the distance, from left to right: Kearney Lake, Lake of Two Rivers, and a bit farther right is the Little Rock Lake. The view is absolutely spectacular! Even more to take in is that the entire landscape, now that you know, was once 20 kilometres below the Earth’s surface from the erosion phenomena.

Continue the Loop

After post 6, continue the loop and you’ll know you are in descent once you reach post 7. Be careful going down as it can get slippery when wet and there’s a bit of a steepness.

When you reach post 9, yahay! Good job! You’ve completed the loop of the Lookout Trail and experienced Algonquin Provincial Park’s the Lookout!

If you’re like me and a nature outdoor enthusiast, you would want to track your overall breakdown of your hike. I used MotionX-GPS to track how well I did in my hikes like the time I took, distance, altitude, and so on. What’s so nice about this app is the geolocation and knows trails. MotionX-GPS is a product of MotionX that tracks your position and movement for your outdoor activities. It needs a good working GPS signal to do its job. Here’s my MotionX map and statistics to share how I did with the Lookout Trail. The map is valid until Jan 2020. Overall, I believe I did well considering I stopped a couple of times to take photos, sit at the lookout, and listen to the nature unfold around me.