The Huron Trail- A 10.5k Bike or Hike in Gatineau Park

Biking the Huron Trail in Gatineau Park was so fun! I mean, not the very beginning-it was all uphill. But then after that it was great!

The Huron Trail is also called Trail 3 on the Gatineau Park trail maps. It’s only 5 kilometres long, and ends at the beautiful Étienne-Brûlé Lookout. We chose to bike it, but it would also make for a really nice hike. The trail is a three season trail, so it’s only open from April 15th to November 15th, weather permitting. Dogs are allowed too!

Getting There

The Huron Trail starts just off of Promenade du Lac-Fortune. There’s a parking area indicated on the Gatineau Park trails map, but no number assigned to the lot. That made more sense once we’d arrived, because the parking wasn’t an actual parking lot, just a wide shoulder with room for about fifteen cars to park.

You can use these coordinates to get there: 45.511713, -75.868420. At the parking spot, there’s a “Lac Fortune” sign, so you’ll know you’ve arrived. There wasn’t anything else at the parking spot except for parking, but that was fine by us.

The Trailhead

In order to reach the trailhead, we hopped on our bikes, and headed uphill on Promenade du Lac-Fortune. There was no way to mistake uphill for downhill on this road, trust me! I was SO impressed with the cyclists who were out there working their way uphill.

The trailhead was about 300 metres up the road, on our right hand side. There was a sign at the trailhead, which was flanked by two big rocks.

Hopping on the trail, we were biking uphill IMMEDIATELY. This was our first bike ride of the season, and the hill felt super steep.  I was just starting to worry about what I had gotten us into when things leveled off a bit after an uphill climb of 500 metres.

The Trail

The rest of the trail definitely had quite a few small hills, but nothing compared to this first one. For the length of the trail, it was nice and wide (double track, I think real bikers call it). The trail was mostly made up of dirt and gravel, with a few rocks thrown in here and there for good measure.

We biked the trail on hybrid bikes, and they were a fairly good match for this particular trail. There were a few spots, mostly uphill or where the water had carried a lot of silt to one spot, where we wished we had wider tires to grip the trail better. I would not attempt this trail with a road bike, or with a bike that had skinnier tires than ours. For reference, our tires are an inch and a half wide.

There were quite a few sections of the trail that featured lovely little ponds or bodies of water. These spots made for a nice change in scenery, and are good places to stop for a little break. There was only a bench at one point on the trail, at the 3.7 kilometre mark. It overlooked a really cute little pond. When you pass this bench though, there’s just over a kilometre until you reach the lookout, so I wouldn’t stop here for a big break like lunch.

The trail ran through the forest for the entire length of it, and was nice and shady. Some parts of it were a bit overgrown with tall grass. If ticks are a worry for you, you might feel more comfortable wearing pants. We didn’t see any ticks though.

Other Trails Nearby

The Huron Trail intersects with a lot of other trails in Gatineau Park. We had biked only 1.7 kilometres when we reached a split in the trail for Trail 12, heading into the forest to our left. This trail didn’t look well-travelled at all, although there was a sign that noted that the Shilly Shally Shelter was only a kilometre away from where we were. We reached the split for Trail 28 (to our left) after biking for 3 kilometres. Trail 21 was not much further on, and a sign there told us that 5 kilometres away was Meech Lake and Parking Lot 12. None of the trails we had come across so far allowed bikes on them- they were strictly for hikers only.

Trail 9 intersected our path on both our left and right sides. A sign indicated that the Western Shelter was 2 kilometres away, on our right hand side. We reached the split for the final “hiking only” trail at the 4 kilometre mark. Trail 20 branched off to our right, but I’m not sure where it lead to.

We crossed over Ridge Road after biking for about 5 kilometres. Ridge Road is also called Trail 1, and we biked the Eastern and Western sections of it last year. It was a lot of fun!

Ridge Road was also a really good sign that we were getting close to the lookout.

The Étienne-Brûlé Lookout

The forest ended after we had biked just a little more than 5 kilometres. We thought we would arrive right at the lookout, so when the trail kind of spat us out onto a road, we were a little surprised. Turns out, there’s a TON of parking at the lookout, and it loops around. We hopped on the road and biked to our right, following the loop. When the road split, we stayed left to get to the lookout. It would have been easier to turn to our left from the trail, but we didn’t know that at the time.

The lookout, like most of them in Gatineau, was beautiful. It was also a really nice little spot for lunch, because there were big grassy areas with picnic tables.

The stone wall that runs alongside one of the picnic areas is right above Promenade Champlain, and we got the best views from there. It was also fun to watch the cyclists on Promenade Champlain zoom by.

Heading Back

Biking back felt WAY easier than biking towards the lookout had. By the time we reached our parking spot, we had biked a total of 10.5 kilometres. Even though we spent time taking pictures along the way, and hanging out at the lookout, we covered that distance in an hour and fifty minutes.

The Huron Trail was definitely challenging at first, but it felt more manageable as we kept going. The length of the trail made it perfect for a half day trip, and the views were great. Biking through the forest is always more fun (to me!) than biking on the road, and this trail is perfect for that when you’re not quite up to mountain biking. We biked it, but the Huron Trail would also make for a nice leisurely hike.

I hope this trip report has enough info to get you there too. Let me know in the comments, or share and tag a friend to start planning your next adventure!

Map and Elevation Gain

Whenever I’m hiking somewhere new, I tend to wonder about who was on, and who took care of that land before me. I’ve enjoyed using this website as a place to start learning more about the indigenous people whose land I’m on: Native-land.ca.

Check Out the Other Trails We’ve Biked Near Ottawa!

• The Eastern Part of Trail 1 in Gatineau Park
• The Western Part of Trail 1 in Gatineau Park
• The Osgoode Link Pathway, South of Ottawa
• The 1000 Islands Waterfront Trail– this one’s a little further, in Gananoque!

Gear We Brought

• Hybrid Bikes
• Bike Shorts (with padded bum)
• Helmets
• Bike Water Bottles
• Pannier (for rear rack)
• Nalgene 32 Ounce Bottle
• Bug Lotion
• Sunscreen
• Sunglasses
• Cell Phones
• Olympus TG-4 Waterproof Digital Camera
• Tire Repair Kit
• Extra Inner Tube
• Tire Pump
• Tire Levers
• Bike Multi-tool

Gear We Forgot

• First Aid Kit (which is really silly, because we could hurt ourselves just as easily biking as when we’re hiking!)