BootsnAll Travel Network



Parc des Haute-Gorges-de-la-Riviere-Malbaie – Photos

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We were a bit disappointed by this park: http://www.sepaq.com/pq/hgo/en/ . It has one of Quebec’s best hikes (the 5 hour Acropole des Draveurs hike) which warrants a visit to the park. Unlike other Quebec parks however, this park (which is the newest of the provincial parks) forbids the use of your car – once you get to the park they tell you that you have to park your car in the campground, which is close to the entrance of the park. Transport between the entrance of the park and the Le Draveur Services Center (which is 8 km away) is provided by a shuttle bus that passes every 15 minutes.

This might seem reasonable enough, but what if you want to do the Acropole des Draveurs hike early in the morning? The shuttle service only starts at 8am (ends at 7:30 pm). I got up at 6 and decided to walk the 7 km or so to where the trail starts.

Early morning picture (that’s fog coming off the river):
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Finally got to the trailhead and started the 9km hike:

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We also took a cruise down the Malbaie river. Again the logistics screwed us up: you can’t buy the tickets at the campground. You have to walk 1km from the campground to the main road, catch the shuttle bus to the Le Draveur Services Center where you can buy the tickets. We waited 2 hours for our boat (the alternative would have been to go back to the campground, rest up for 15 min, then do the whole shuttle bus thing again).

This explains the pissed off look below:
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We had paid for 3 nights of camping at Parc des Haute-Gorges-de-la-Riviere-Malbaie – we did one night and decided we didn’t want to stick around and be trapped in our tents. I’m all for the environment – but if you want to attract tourists to a national park you have to make it accessible. Bad job on this one SEPAQ!

PS. They don’t give refunds either!



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