Bon Echo Provincial Park – August 2024

We love Bon Echo Provincial Park, we have been here many times and even sometimes just go for the day as it’s only a 90 minute drive from our house. Set on Mazinaw Lake, the cliffs are spectacular and a huge draw for tourists. They also have 6 trails, one being a Pet Exercise trail, a few beaches, a dog beach and lots of paddling/kayaking options. We did drive to the far end of the Park and portage our canoe about 3/4 km down to Joe Perry lake. We paddled around for quite a while and we tried to get to Pearson Lake but we got bogged down and couldn’t get through. That was the first time we couldn’t get to that lake. There are back country sites on both these lakes as well. All we saw was a Loon, not much wildlife around. We did a couple of trails, one being the first loop of the Abes and Essens trail and it was clearly in need of some maintenance as you will see in below photos. Parts of the trail were almost covered by foliage to the point some of it was hitting us in the face. We have a huge tick problem in Ontario and they are always telling us to be careful and stay on the trails etc which is great, but maybe do a bit of maintenance. We always see a lot of staff just driving around, not sure what they are doing but perhaps they would like to do a hike (with some clippers)! We also did quite a bit of biking around the campground. It’s a great park and we try to get there somewhat regularly. We also like to sit in our canoe, on Mazinaw Lake, and watch the cliff climbers on Mazinaw Rock, it’s a bit boring as it takes them forever to move ! lol

  • High Pines Trail
  • Bon Echo Inn sign at the location where the Inn used to be
  • A miniature of the Inn
  • One of the original buildings on the Inn’s property, set right on Mazinaw Lake
  • View from the point of the “rock”
  • The “Narrows” you can paddle from one part of Mazinaw Lake to the other side
  • It’s hard to tell but there are about a dozen people, or more, cliff climbing this rock
  • You can sort of see the people in this pic, I did not have my good camera. They are in the middle just above the greenery
  • Loon on Joe Perry Lake
  • We did the first loop which was close to 4 kms and the trail was very steep in spots and lots of rocks and roots to go over/around
  • Clutes Lake on the trail
  • This was the trail, the water was halfway up my calf and we had to balance on logs to get through !
  • This trail needs some maintenance for sure

That’s it for our Ontario Parks this summer although we will be heading to Algonquin this fall for a bit to find some moose to photograph. It will be a while before I post those photos that I take in the park so after this post, we will move on to Spain and Portugal. We were there last September and October and it was a great trip.

See you soon and enjoy your Fall !

18 thoughts on “Bon Echo Provincial Park – August 2024”

  3. Looks like a beautiful place to visit for any of the activities that you two enjoy Susan. Those are steep cliffs … no wonder it takes so long to get up to the top. That one wooden walkway/trail – wow. No wonder the water was up to your calf and you’d think they’d do something more permanent that have park goers stepping on the logs … the rustic aspect is nice, but if there was algae on it, it’d be slippery. If you and I ran the parks you see ….

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    1. We should run the parks Linda! So much we could do. What I don’t understand is, the tick issue is big in Ontario and one thing they tell us is stay on the trails but when they are overgrown it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure why they didn’t build a wooden walkway over that one part, I don’t mind roots and rocks but that was a bit much

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      1. Indeed! And I’ll bet you that the people that oversee these parks never go out and walk or hike in them, or the trails would be in better shape. My favorite trail at Lake Erie Metropark was always flooded so I either went when we’d not had rain for several days or wear waterproof boots (not ideal for hiking). Their solution this year was pouring white gravel over all the low areas … it’s rough to walk on and it’s beating up my shoe soles. Why not lay down a raised wooden walkway instead?

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  5. What a great place to visit. That rock climber all the way up freaks me out! What good was that long rope if he fell? He would have took out the two below him. I actually admire rock climbers, they are in such good shape. Your picture of the loon is so beautiful!

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