Vaughan to Algonquin Park: the Highway 60 corridor by chauffeured car

The park, and the road through it

Algonquin is Ontario's oldest provincial park, a wilderness the size of Prince Edward Island whose one road — Highway 60, from the West Gate near Dwight to the East Gate near Whitney — gives a family in a vehicle fifty-six kilometres of what the park is: hardwood hills, lakes at every turn, interpretive trails from a kilometre to eleven, the Visitor Centre with its lookout over a bog, a museum of the park's logging century, campgrounds, outfitters, and moose in the roadside ponds in May and June. For Vaughan it is a three-hour drive and the most-photographed October day in the province; for a chauffeured group it is a day of stops with nobody counting the driving.

The corridor, kilometre by kilometre

The park measures its road from the West Gate, and the stops a chauffeured day makes are all on the park's own list. The Oxtongue River trail at km 3 is the short warm-up; the Whiskey Rapids trail at km 7 follows the river; the Hardwood Lookout at km 13.8 is the first hill above the forest; the Track and Tower trail at km 25 climbs to the lookout over Cache Lake and is the family half-day; the Two Rivers store and beach at km 31 is lunch; the Visitor Centre at km 43 has the exhibits, the restaurant and the viewing deck over the Sunday Creek bog that every fall photograph is taken from; the Spruce Bog boardwalk at km 42.5 is the flat, easy trail for grandparents and strollers; the Lookout Trail at km 39.7 is the steep short one to the best view; the Logging Museum at km 54.5 is the walk through the park's history with the alligator tug and the camboose camp. A family that leaves Vaughan at seven does five of these and is home by seven.

The fall-colour day

The first two weeks of October are the reason this page exists. The corridor's hardwood hills turn together — the park posts a colour report on its site from mid-September — and the Highway 60 lookouts on a Saturday in that window are the busiest places in the park, with the Visitor Centre's lot full by eleven. A chauffeured group from Maple leaves at 6:30, reaches the West Gate by 9:45, does the Hardwood Lookout and the Lookout Trail while the lots are open, eats at the Visitor Centre at noon, and takes the Spruce Bog and the Logging Museum in the afternoon before the drive home through the Lake of Bays colours on Highway 60 west. The Executive Sprinter parks where a family sedan cannot, because the chauffeur drops at the trailhead and moves to the overflow; that is the whole difference on a colour weekend.

Summer: trails, beaches and the moose hour

Summer is the trail day: Track and Tower or the Centennial Ridges (eleven kilometres, the serious one) in the morning, a swim at the Lake of Two Rivers beach at lunch, the Visitor Centre in the afternoon heat, and, for the family that wants the animal, a slow drive of the corridor at dusk when moose stand in the roadside ponds — the chauffeur drives it at the speed the family asks for and pulls off where the vehicles have stopped, because a stopped car on Highway 60 in June means a moose. Wolf howls are the park's August evening event, a convoy of vehicles to a spot where the naturalists howl and the wolves sometimes answer; a chauffeured family joins it from a lodge and is driven back in the dark.

The lodges and the weekend

The corridor has three lodges inside the park — Arowhon Pines, Bartlett Lodge and Killarney Lodge — reached by side roads from Highway 60, and the Dwight and Lake of Bays resorts just outside the West Gate. A Vaughan couple or family books the weekend as a daily hire with the vehicle staying: the lodge's dock, the trails each day, the Visitor Centre, a canoe rented at the outfitter at Canoe Lake or Opeongo, and the drive home Sunday. The lodges' roads are gravel and the chauffeur has driven them; the Luxury SUV suits the couple and the Sprinter the family with the canoe on the rack.

Canoes, from the road

Algonquin's interior is a canoe park, and while a chauffeured trip does not go into it, it can put a family on the water: the outfitters at Canoe Lake (km 14) and Lake Opeongo (off km 46) rent canoes and kayaks by the hour and the day, and Canoe Lake's paddle out to Tom Thomson's cairn is the two-hour family paddle. The chauffeur drops at the outfitter's dock and collects at the agreed time; the family's own canoe rides on the Sprinter's rack by arrangement.

The route from Vaughan

Highway 400 north from Vaughan to Barrie, Highway 11 to Huntsville, and Highway 60 east through Dwight to the West Gate — the Huntsville post covers the town that is the corridor's supply stop. The routing estimate is nearly four hours; the real-world time from Maple or Kleinburg with the 400 clear is three and a quarter, and on a colour Saturday the chauffeur leaves before seven to be on Highway 11 ahead of the same idea. From the east, the Bancroft road reaches the East Gate at Whitney, which is the quieter approach and the one a group based in the Highlands uses.

Permits and the park's rules

A daily vehicle permit is required to stop in the park and is bought at the gate or in advance from Ontario Parks; on fall-colour weekends the park has capped day-use and the advance permit is the thing to hold. The chauffeur carries it on the dashboard; the fare does not include it. Dogs are allowed on the trails on a leash; the trails are graded on the park's map from easy to strenuous and the chauffeur has the map on the drive.

Which vehicle

• A couple or three: Premium Sedan in summer, an SUV in October and for the lodge roads.
• A family of four to six with a cooler and boots: Luxury SUV, boosters fitted at $25 each.
• Two families, or a group of friends for the colours: Executive Sprinter, with the tables and the bay for the picnic and the boots.
• A canoe on the roof: arranged at booking.

What the fare replaces

Six and a half hours of Highway 400, 11 and 60 in a day, a vehicle permit's worth of hunting for a parking spot at each trailhead on a colour weekend, and a driver who does not see the colours because the road needs watching. The fare is one number in the booking engine before you book — hourly for the day, daily for the weekend, tolls not an issue on this route — and for a group of eight it undercuts two cars; for a family of four it is a comfort purchase and the site says so.

Seasons

October's first two weeks for colour; May and June for moose and the quiet trails; July and August for the beaches, the canoes and the wolf howls; September for warm water and thinning crowds. Winter closes most of the corridor's facilities but Highway 60 stays open and the park grooms ski trails at Mew Lake and near the Visitor Centre; a winter day is an SUV job on a plowed highway that is still a northern one.

A colour Saturday for a group of eight, in order

The most-booked shape of this trip is a Sprinter of friends from Thornhill on the first or second Saturday of October, and it runs like this. Pickup at 6:30 from two addresses off Bathurst; the 400 north with coffee at the tables; Barrie by 7:15, Huntsville by 8:45 with a ten-minute stop at the Tim Hortons on Highway 60 that every Algonquin car stops at; the West Gate at 9:30 with the advance permit shown. The Hardwood Lookout trail at km 13.8 first — forty-five minutes up and back to the ridge — then the Track and Tower's shorter loop at km 25 for the Cache Lake view; the Two Rivers store at km 31 for the picnic tables at noon; the Visitor Centre at km 43 at one, when its lot has begun to turn over, for the deck and the exhibits; the Spruce Bog boardwalk beside it at two thirty for the flat kilometre; the Logging Museum at km 54.5 at three for the walk and the alligator; and the drive back west along the corridor at four with the sun on the hills, Dwight and the Lake of Bays road at five, home by eight. Fourteen hours, one hourly fare, eight people who watched the colour instead of the road.

The Visitor Centre, and why it is the anchor

The park's Visitor Centre at km 43 is the building a family day is arranged around: the exhibits on the park's ecology and history, the theatre's film, the bookstore, the restaurant with the only proper hot lunch on the corridor, and the viewing deck cantilevered over the Sunday Creek valley, which is the view on the park's own postcards and the reason its lot fills first on a colour weekend. A chauffeured group has the vehicle dropped at the door and moved to the overflow, which on a Saturday in October is the difference between the deck at noon and the deck not at all. The centre's pages on the Friends of Algonquin site list the day's programmes and the colour report.

Trails by ability

The corridor's interpretive trails are graded and a chauffeured day matches them to the group. For grandparents and strollers: the Spruce Bog boardwalk (1.5 km, flat) and the Logging Museum (1.3 km, flat, gravel). For a family with children six to twelve: Whiskey Rapids (2.1 km), the Hardwood Lookout (1 km with a climb), the Lookout Trail (2.1 km, steep to the view), Beaver Pond (2 km with the ponds). For adults who walk: Track and Tower (7.7 km with the lookout), Mizzy Lake (11 km, the wildlife trail, a full day), the Centennial Ridges (10 km, two lookouts, the strenuous one). The park's trail guide booklets are sold at each trailhead box; the chauffeur, waiting at the trailhead lot, is the reason a family can do a linear trail and be collected at the other end.

Where the vehicle waits, and the lot problem

Every corridor trailhead has a small lot and on a colour weekend most are full by ten; the Visitor Centre and the Two Rivers store have larger ones. A family car circles; a chauffeured vehicle drops the group at the trailhead sign, moves to wherever there is space — the campground day-use lot, the Two Rivers overflow — and is back at the sign when the group texts. For the Lookout Trail and the Hardwood Lookout, whose lots are the smallest, this is the whole reason the day works.

The East Gate approach and the loop

A group based in the Haliburton Highlands or Bancroft reaches the park by the East Gate at Whitney on Highways 62, 127 and 60, and a two-day daily hire from Vaughan can make the corridor a through-drive: up the 400 and 11 to the West Gate, the corridor east with the stops, out the East Gate to a night in Barry's Bay or Bancroft, and home the next day by Highway 62 and 28 through the Kawarthas — the loop that sees two regions' colour in one weekend, and the Bancroft post covers its southern half.

Pickup notes for Vaughan

The Algonquin run starts on Highway 400 for every Vaughan community: Maple and the VMC are on it; Woodbridge and Kleinburg join at Major Mackenzie or Rutherford; Thornhill and Concord come across on Highway 7 or the 407 to the 400. The 407 is not needed on this route and the fare, quoted from the exact address, reflects the community. Give us the date, the permit, the trails you want, the number of child seats, the cooler and the canoe, and whether the day is the corridor or a lodge weekend; the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the park's colour report and the weather on it.

Booking it

Book an hourly day from your Vaughan address for the corridor, or a daily hire for a lodge weekend; tell us the trails you want, the permit date, the seats, the cooler and the canoe, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the park's colour report on it.

Book the Algonquin day