Dumoine Tote Road Trail - Part 2

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One month later, my ankle mostly healed (but still somewhat stiff), we decided to go back and finish what we started. Katharina joined us this time as we approached from the northern terminus and spent another night at the lovely site Camp Bois Carre.

September 16, 2023 - Grand Chute to Camp Bois Carre

We drove up to Grand Chute early Saturday morning. The road in the ZEC areas was very rough so we were glad to have Deb's trusty old pickup truck as I do not think the Matrix would have survived this journey. We stopped at two ZEC offices, one to pay for camping and trail access, and then four minutes up the road at a second office to pay for vehicle access. Weird that the two are not combined. After about an hour of bumping over rough rocks and rutted roadway we arrived at Grand Chute where a large parking area and yet another ZEC office was located. The place was deserted and this office was closed so we parked the truck, happy that we did not have to pay yet another fee. We then hitched up our packs and strolled a short way down the road to the official trailhead.

Start of the trail


It was a lovely day and I found the two kilometer section of path along the cascades of Grand Chute to be the most spectacular of the trail. We stopped many times at lookouts and rocky or sandy shoreline to take in the views. Leaving this section we then had about a kilometer of ATV road walking until Lac Robinson where the trail goes back into the woods past a couple of campsites. At the second campsite there was an RV parked, but there did not appear to be anyone around. We sat down here for a quick lunch at the picnic table by the fire pit.

Lovely day for beach walking


A bit of ATV trail


It took a some searching to find where the trail went from here, but after a couple minutes we found an old roadway into the woods with a downed tree, thoughtfully cleared by chainsaw with a notch just wide enough for someone on foot. This hopefully keeps the ATV traffic off of the trail. Another hour or so of walking we arrived at the campsite just in time for afternoon tea. The rest of the afternoon was filled with relaxing, snoozing, coffee, swimming, and even a couple beers were enjoyed at this lovely spot in the Canadian wilderness.

September 17, 2023 - Return to Grande Chute

Deb and I spent the early morning hours chin wagging by the fire over coffee. Kat joined us later once the sun was good and up. With a relaxed start we headed back northward along the same stretch of trail from yesterday, though we took the longer, historical route to Stevens Pond lookout which had a nice bench and platform for a break.

Packed up and ready to leave our camp for the second time


A hydrometric station along the river


Break at Steven Pond


Today was a day for wildlife. An otter swimming in the river gave us some entertainment for a while and a couple of partridge sightings had me ready to skewer some lunch. The birds were not aggressive this time and no injuries to the humans nor the avians was incurred. As we walked along the ATV trail towards Lac Robinson, a young bear crossed in front of us, stopped to say hello, and then scampered into the woods after realizing it was vastly outnumbered.

A light rain began to fall, but upon arriving at the base of Grande Chute, the sun came out again just in time for lunch along the rocky shoreline. A short hike later had us back to the trailhead where there seemed to be a ridiculous amount of vehicle traffic speeding by. A drunk woman stumbled down the road on foot and proceeded to reinforce the fact that she was very inebriated by peppering us with a barrage of questions and then demonstrating a complete inability to understand the simple answers of directions to the trail, litterally right in front of her. We wished her a good hike and drove the rough road back to sober civilization.

Lunch along the rapids of Grande Chute


Lookout at one of the falls of Grande Chute


The End

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