Larose Forest just keeps getting better! And I think the snowshoe/fatbike trails from P1 might just be the best snowshoe trails we’ve been on yet.
All the snowshoe trails at Larose Forest are easy to hike, and beautifully planned and maintained.
The trails from P1 are perfect for just about anyone. They’re made up of five separate loops, meaning you can make your hike as short or as long as you’d like!
Dogs are allowed at Larose Forest year-round, but please keep them on leash! Larose Forest has trails for TONS of different activities, including dog sledding and horseback riding, and I can picture a stray dog being very bothersome to those animals.
I love Larose Forest.
Getting There
At the P1 parking lot, there’s a newly built welcome centre that will be used for equipment rental in the future- I can’t wait to see what they have available!
There’s also a covered pavilion with a bunch of picnic tables, and a few porta-potties.
You can use these coordinates to get there: 45.376180, -75.242393.
There’s a huge map of the dogsled trails posted in front of the pavilion, and this was where I went first. It took me a minute to spot the trailhead off to the left of this sign. Here, there was a smaller map of the snowshoe/fatbike trails posted.
The Trail
The snowshoe trail from P1 is shared with fatbikers in the winter, so it’s important to wear snowshoes on your feet to help maintain this shared trail.
The loops all make for incredibly easy hiking. There’s very little elevation gain, and the trail winds lazily through the forest. Designed with bikers in mind, there are gentle corners and twists along the trail as you hike along.
There are no trail markers posted along the trail. But that’s okay, because the trail is so well-established that you could never lose it. It remains the same width for the entire length of it and is skinny enough that you have to walk single file.
“Traffic” on the trails is expected to flow in one direction, to make it easier to share the trail. All the loops are to be hiked clockwise, and there are “no entry” signs posted to indicate if you’re going the wrong way.
At each trail split, there is a map posted. The trail splits are also signed, i.e. A1 B1, so you always know exactly where you are.
We crossed over the dog sledding trail countless times. Each time it was easy to see where we needed to re-enter the forest to stay on the trail.
Dog sled crossing!
Distances of the Loops
In total, there are five loops that you can choose to hike off of P1. They’re all different distances and you can combine as many as you’d like, depending on the total distance you want to travel.
Loop 1: Approx. 1.4 km (unless hiked as a loop, then 1.6 km)
Loop 2: Approx. 2 km
Loop 3: Approx. 1.26 km
Loop 4: Approx. 2.6 km
Loop 5: Approx. 2.3 km
Total Distance: Approx. 9.5 km
These trails make for easy hiking, and the loops make it possible to choose the distance that feels right for you.
The Hike
Walking through Larose Forest is always beautiful, and all the trails look much the same. It was fun to see some of the different mountain biking features that had been built into some of the loops on this trail.
There’s not much in the way of variety when it comes to Larose Forest, but I actually really enjoy that about this place! The trail is so easy to follow, and the terrain so consistent, that I find I’m able to just relax and let my mind wander.
Trail Thoughts
By the time we arrived back at the parking lot, we had clocked 10 km on our GPS tracker. It took us about 3 and a half hours to cover that distance, which is NOT very fast… And here I’ve been blaming our toddler for our slow hiking pace.
Regardless, taking a nice long walk in the woods is good for you, and the more time spent in nature the better! We’ll be backt o Larose Forest again, I know it.
Gorgeous!
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
Our GPS tracked route of the trails at Larose Forest.
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.
Elevation gain along the trail. Not a lot!
