I absolutely LOVED this loop. We DID get lost at the very top of the hat. We found the trail down soon after, so if you follow this up, there is a spot on my track where we zig zagged, and bush wacked to find the trail. Don’t go around the back of the hat if you choose to go up, stay on the front.
I am assuming the trail down is actually just off the big meadow you climb up on, and go down. The “Hat” to your right when you climb up. You will see where we found the trail again.
I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you take fit horses on this one, with shoes. There is a very large shale face with rocks within the dead fall forest - our horses had to lope up this as it was so steep. But do NOT go down this face. I think it would be too dangerous.
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Excellent trail. The main path is wide and is easy to follow (while the side trails are much narrower). We only went to the first waterfall (7km round-trip), but there should be 2 more further along the trail (supposedly additional 2.5km one-way to the 2nd waterfall and another 1.5km one-way to the 3rd for a total of 15-16km roundtrip).
Seems like it is a very popular trail as we did it on Thursday in the afternoon and the parking lot was almost full when we arrived.
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Beautiful bridge over the North Saskatchewan River, followed by an excellent long boardwalk over the sandy delicate soils. Then grades up to another bridge over the Siffleur River that you follow up to the falls. The tilted bedrock that forms the mountains here is outstanding - there is an initial viewing area that will illustrate it beautifully. Subsequent viewing area of the river canyon and falls are great too.
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