Dates : September 21 to September 22, 2025
Total Distance Traveled: 5.3km
After a last minute cancellation of a three day trip into Algonquin, I decided to salvage two of those days by heading into one of my favorite spots for a relaxed outing – the Algonquin Highlands.
Generally considered to be a more beginner friendly alternative to its larger sibling, the Highlands offers a variety of canoe accessible sites which are reservable by site number. Many require little to no portaging, and the sites are well maintained. It’s also a bit closer to Toronto by around 45 minutes. Of course this comes at the expense of shared spaces with cottages, heavier traffic and depending on the lake, loud neighbors – especially near group sites.
For this trip, we went into Sherborne Lake. The campsites here are well spaced, spacious and scenic and yet rarely busy. The reason? The access road is quite gnarly. Lots of roots, rocks, mud, puddles along with some steep inclines that will cause havoc on any car with low clearance. On the other hand, in a vehicle like my Jeep, the trail is actually very fun.
Since this was an overnight trip with just 30 min of paddling and no portages, I was able to stuff my canoe with my friends Cesar and Judy plus Hana the portage puppy, and plenty of food. It was almost like camping at a non serviced car camping site. But with toilets which didn’t smell.
Upon arriving at our campsite shortly after 3pm, we quickly set up our tents along with a large tarp knowing that rain was in the forecast. Once that was done, we collected firewood and sat around the fire for the rest of the evening, enjoying a steak dinner. Hana of course was the happiest with our meal choice. She didn’t even have to wait for the steaks to be cooked.
By 10pm, the fire was slowly burning down when we felt the first of the rain drops. We decided to call it a night.
The scattered showers which lulled us to sleep continued into the morning as we slowly crawled out of our tents around 7am.
Thanks to the tarp, we had a dry spot to cook breakfast: bacon and eggs wrapped in a tortillas, washed down with plenty of instant Vietnamese coffee.
By the time we finished packing up, the rain had picked up to a steady pour. I regretted not wearing my rain pants as we paddled back but we were back at the car in no time.
With car camping sites now charging around $50 per night, I can’t help but prefer parks like this where I can have a quiet stretch of lake all to myself.
