Forillon National Park, Quebec



The incredible fog

  This morning (8:30am), we drove into Forillon National Park and decided to take a hike on the Les Graves Trail. Les Graves is an eight kilometre long trail that winds its way to the very edge of the Gaspé Peninsula (Cape Gaspé).

Visible layers of Sedimentary Rock

At the beginning of the trail, I noticed visible layers of sedimentary rock found on the beach shore. Over a long period of time, sediments were deposited and slowly compressed until the bottom layer became solid rock.

We walked for the whole morning in silence, as fog dominated the sky (result of Labrador and Gulfstream ocean currents). Along the way, I spotted numerous remains of black bears and remembered that Forillon National Park is known for its large black bear population.

 At 11:00pm, we reached the end of the trail and the end of Gaspé Peninsula (end of the Appalachian Mountain range as well). I took some photos, but the fog ruined the scenery.

My brother looking up
 at the 400m ascent

We returned to the parking lot and without catching a break (except for a twenty minute lunch), we immediately started another trail! This trail (Mont Saint-Alban) is 3.2 kilometres long (round trip), but at the start of the trail, there is a vertical ascent of 400m while the trail only progresses 200m! After climbing to the top of this stretch of the trail, I was extremely exhausted and almost fainted. And to only think that we only completed 200m of the trail!



The grand view from the
summit of Mount Saint-Alban



You’d think the remaining 1.4 kilometres would be on flat land, but sadly, the trail continued to ascend (it never descended). I figured that Mount Saint-Alban must have been part of the Appalachian Mountain range. At 3:00pm, we reached the summit (what a relief!) and took lots of photos from here. We were approximately a kilometre above sea level, but the fog had failed to clear and the result was an obscured view of the land below us. After catching our breath, we descended back down (much easier) and returned to the parking lot. 

The tall coniferous trees
at Cape Gaspe

With nothing else to do for the rest of the day (not that anyone in my family had the strength for another trail), my dad decided to return to our campsite extra early since today was the most physically exhausting of the entire trip. I had a nice dinner and fell asleep in my sleeping bag at 9:00pm.