Track and Tower Trail

Of course, a hiking stop is a must on our 3-week tour through the eastern United States and Canada. The Algonquin National Park (see my collection for location and description) is at its most beautiful with its current autumn colors in the Indian summer and temperatures of 23-30 degrees. 🇨🇦🍁🍂🌞 Our first hike was also the most strenuous and one of the most difficult of the routes in the park. As a German, you are always happy about great narrow forest paths with roots and stones when hiking at home. However, if you have these on 7.99 km of paths on an 8 km tour and it goes constantly uphill and downhill over hill and dale, it requires an extremely high level of sure-footedness and a constant look down.😄 That's how it is The 8 km felt twice as long, even though it was an incredibly beautiful landscape. The tour is one of the most varied in the park, past lakes, rivers, an old railway line and the absolute highlight after a strenuous climb - the fantastic view from a cliff of the endless forests painted in autumn. Great! 🤩

After meeting our Canadian friends in the park (without cell service), we walk the Track and Tower Trail, which connects a beautiful viewpoint with an old railway line, now a cycle path. Like the Mizzy Lake Trail, it is very wet and muddy, but there are no wading sections.

A very nice hike, challenging but not difficult with a fantastic view as a reward. Unfortunately a bit crowded

During the night it rained and the temperatures dropped to freezing point. The weather forecast for the day is sobering. However, we don't let that deter us and head to the Track and Tower Trailhead early in the morning. The parking lot right off Highway 60 is still empty. Through a mixed forest we soon reach Cache Lake. It has been a reservoir since the 1930's with a modern dam and weir at the eastern end. There has probably been a dam made of wood since the 1880s. Here is the origin of the Madawaska River. The path follows the river partly on boardwalks and soon turns south. Here it goes slightly uphill, also via a wooden staircase, to the lookout. We enjoy the wonderful view over the colorful forests of the Algonquin and Cache Lake. Near here was the former Skymount Tower, a steel fire tower erected in 1922 and dismantled in the 1950s. Now it's back down to the Madawaska River, past the remains of the foundations of the large railway bridge over the river. The steel structure from 1899 was 110 m long and 15 m high. Now we walk a stretch on the former railway bed, which is also used as a cycle path. Later we get past Grant Lake back to the trailhead, where newly arrived vehicle owners are now looking in vain for a parking space.

Nice hike in bad weather. “Time in motion” is nonsense again, Komoot doesn’t count the time when the cell phone is switched off.

Experienced hikers can make it in 3 hrs incl stops and breaks. Trails can be quite muddy and swampy. The outlook is worth it!