La Mauricie National Park – Following Les Falaises and Les Cascades Trails

My very first hike in La Mauricie National Park, on the beautiful Ruisseau-Bouchard Trail, completely blew me away and gave me the desire to continue exploring the park. So I decided to drive on the main road across the park, from east to west, to get to the Saint-Mathieu-du-Parc sector and explore two other hiking trails: Les Falaises and Les Cascades.

Les Falaises (The Cliffs) and Les Cascades (The Waterfalls) are two short loops (4 kilometres and 2.4 kilometres, respectively) that allow you to appreciate the scenery around Wapizagonke Lake. A short trail connects the two loops together, so it is possible to combine them to make a longer hike.

This is what I decided to do, so after driving through the national park, I parked my car along the main road (there is a small parking space there), then I set off on Les Cliffs Trail.

I admit, I decided to follow Les Falaises because I was attracted by the name of the trail. After being amazed by the superb views along Ruisseau-Bouchard Trail, I told myself that a trail that overlooks rocky cliffs in the national park must also offer beautiful views!

But I decided to save the best for last, and to follow the trail clockwise, starting with the forest part and ending with the lookouts. For this portion of a little over a kilometre, the trail gains elevation, but nothing very difficult, as the trail is wide and not very steep.

Almost halfway through the loop, there is a staircase that takes you down to Les Cascades Trail, at the bottom of the cliffs. I took it, as I wanted to walk this trail too. Going down the stairs wasn’t too bad, but I was a little anticipating the fact that I was going to have to come back the same way, and go back up all those steps.

I reached Les Cascades trail, which I also decided to follow clockwise. I first crossed the stream (Ruisseau du Caribou, which cascades towards Wapizagonke Lake) via a footbridge, then followed a cute boardwalk along it.

The farther I went along the trail, the louder the water in the stream became. At this point, the stream flows in a series of waterfalls, tumbling over the rocky ground, at the bottom of the cliffs. The trail approaches these waterfalls in several places, offering an impressive spectacle.

The trail continues down into the forest, along the trail, for about 500 metres. It is possible to continue your route to Wapizagonke Lake a few metres further, near which there is another parking area and the Shewenegan picnic area, but I stayed on Les Cascades Trail and crossed the stream, in order to to complete the loop.

From this point the trail climbs almost continuously. I reached the place where I had started the loop, I found the series of stairs that I had descended a little earlier, and I continued my climb, back to Les Falaises Trail. I had to stop several times to catch my breath. It’s not that the climb is particularly difficult, but since it was my second hike of the day, I was starting to get pretty tired.

Finally, after these stairs which seemed endless to me, I reached Les Falaises Trail again, and I continued my hike in the direction, precisely, of these famous cliffs which give their name to the trail. On this 2-kilometre stretch, there are three lookouts offering views of Wapizagonke Lake.

The views were decent, although the sun had disappeared behind the clouds. But at this point, I was really starting to look forward to being finished. And I had the impression that the trail continued to gain elevation, and each staircase seemed harder and harder to climb.

But eventually I got back to where I started and completed the hike. In total, combining the two trails, I covered 6.25 kilometres, with an elevation gain of 326 metres. And despite my fatigue and my tired legs, I really enjoyed this hike, allowing me to explore another sector of this magnificent national park.

Dear La Mauricie National Park, I will come back!