All I can say is that the bugs are insane in June. Be prepared with a bug jacket and lots of bug spray. I prefer Ben's 100 for bug spray (100% DEET), you can only get Ben's 30(30% DEET) here in Canada, but online you'll find people that will ship you Ben's 100 from the US.
Other than that June is a nice time to go when the days last forever, and the park isn't busy yet. Beware of buying firewood in the park, they always either screw you by not filling the bag, or ive you wood so waterlogged it seems they just pulled it out of a lake or something, won't light worth shit.
Anyways, there's a blurb on Achray if anyone is interested:
Algonquin Park – Achray Provincial Park
Achray Park is part of Algonquin Park in the mush less traveled Eastern side of Algonquin, when compared to Hwy. 60 corridor. The park store there used to be the train station for the Canadian Northern Railway that used to run through there. The rail bed still exists, but the tracks and ties have been dismantled over 10 years ago.
Achray is on Grand Lake- a rather long lake, and also happens to be the site where Tom Thompson painted one of his more famous works ‘The Jack Pine’ where he was working as a ranger, a year before he drowned in Canoe Lake in the western part of Algonquin park.
Grand Lake is good for canoeing, motor boats up to 10hp are allowed on the lake as well, the lake has many sandy beaches that apparently the Algonquin Indians used to camp at. The Eastern part of Algonquin
Getting to Achray is a different story. To get there, you have to leave Hwy. 17 near Petawawa and take a long dirt road to Acray at km 50 of the road. The road continues quite a way to Lake Travers, another backcountry destination. The road is wide, but wasn’t in that great of a condition, even though a grader was working on it. Many soft spots even when dry, and on the way out, many washouts and mud pits due to the several days of rain when I was there. Also it is the main route for logging truck, watch out for them, they tend to drive in the middle of the road which can surprise you coming around a corner.
The main gate is Sand Lake gate, which is open limited hours, about half way between Hwy 17y and Achray.
Achray itself is a rather bare bones park. There’s no comfort station or showers, just a few flush toilets, and a camp store selling firewood and ice that seems to be open only when they want to be open. Also when I was there, they were selling bags of wood that were only 2/3 full… seriously – $7.50 for a couple of pieces of wood, and all bags were like that. I would advise getting your wood before you get to the park.
There are two outfitters on the way in just as you get off of the highway – the newer Algonquin bound on your left and a bit further down on the right, Algonquin Portage, which also sells firewood, food and gas, as well as rents canoes – when they are open… they were only open until 4 when I was there in late June. I (foolishly) assumed I would be able to reserve a canoe for a backcountry trip at the camp store in Achray itself, but that was not the case. I had to drive all the way out to the highway and back to get it, then all the way back out again to drop it off (since we were staying at Achray for hiking after the paddling) . These trips are about 200kms of dirt road driving, which means I had little gas left after dropping the canoe off, then I had to drive even farther into Petawawa just to fill up, since Algonquin portage was closed when I was dropping the canoe off and couldn’t get gas then.
I would advise filling up your tank before heading off of Hwy. 17, and also either bringing your own canoe, or if you rent a canoe, arrange your trip so you are on your way out after paddling, to avoid having to drive all over hell’s half acre. I don’t know why they can’t have some kind of an arrangement to be able to rent a canoe just at the park itself instead of having to go back out to the main road to do this.
Other than that Achray is a beautiful, quiet park (no radios on all sites), with a nice lake, couple of beaches, and access to backcountry canoeing and several hiking trails – Berm Lake interpretive trail, Barron Canyon Trail, and Eastern Pines Backpacking Trail.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to check out the Barron Canyon trail due to the incessant rain on the way out this last trip, but I’ll have to visit again to do this.
Some Everytrail trips from Algonquin:
Algonquin - Eastern Pines Backpacking Trail (did as day hike)
Algonquin - Highland Backpacking Trail (2 day backpack)
No comments:
Post a Comment