Hiking & trails
Hiking in Mont-Laurier: the railway trail, the big town park and the mountain one town over
Mont-Laurier's own hiking is valley hiking -- a rail trail along the Lievre and a 162-hectare town park. The famous mountain stands one town north, and this page labels it exactly that way.
Three scales of walking
the town's own walking and riding spine is the Parc lineaire Le P'tit Train du Nord -- the Route verte corridor on the old railway, anchored at the gare patrimoniale and running the Lievre valley through town. Around it: the Parc ecologique Le Renouveau (162 hectares of town green), the parc Toussaint-Lachapelle by the Rapide de l'Orignal, whose falls and the cathedrale facade the Ville illuminates as its downtown cultural pole, the parc Ernest-Leonard and the parc Rosina-Aubin with its jeux d'eau, and the plage municipale on the Lac des Sources out boul. des Ruisseaux, in the Des Ruisseaux sector. The region's marquee mountain terrain -- the Parc regional Montagne du Diable -- is seated in Ferme-Neuve and is a getaway FROM here, labelled as such on this guide's day-trips pages, never an in-town facility
Effort honesty: the town's trails are the gentle end of the Hautes-Laurentides -- flat rail grade, park woods, river shore. The vertical country is real too, but it is the neighbours': read the getaway section below before lacing up for a summit.
The walks, carded
The rail trail
The Route verte corridor through town -- ride it or walk it in either direction from the gare patrimoniale, with the Lievre for company. The town's signature trail day.
The big park
Woods and trails at regional-park scale inside the municipality -- the long local walk, in every season.
The shore circuit
The short in-town circuit: park, gloriette, the lit falls and the cocathédrale -- an evening walk, not a hike, and the better for it.
The getaway, labelled at full strength
The Parc regional Montagne du Diable is a getaway FROM Mont-Laurier seated in FERME-NEUVE: four summits, the highest at 783 m, its accueil at the Village des Batisseurs in Ferme-Neuve -- a short run of 14 km straight-line (computed), about 18 km by road and 20 minutes' estimated driving from the hotel de ville. It is the region's marquee hiking, booked and read with the park, in Ferme-Neuve's name. Nothing of the park is an in-town facility, and no Mont-Laurier trail page may borrow its summits. The Parc regional Kiamika, seated in Kiamika and Chute-Saint-Philippe, is the same grade of trip in the other direction -- its own seat, its own record.
Season notes
Spring runs the Lievre high; black-fly season is a Hautes-Laurentides fact in June; fall is the corridor's glory; winter turns the linear park to snowshoe and ski touring on its operators' terms. Conditions and closures live with the trail's and parks' own surfaces -- read them before the drive, every time.
Common questions
What is the best hike in Mont-Laurier?
In town: the P'tit Train du Nord for distance and ease, Le Renouveau for woods. For summits, the honest answer is the getaway: Montagne du Diable in Ferme-Neuve, labelled as a trip out of town on this guide's day-trips pages.
Is Montagne du Diable a Mont-Laurier park?
No. It is a regional park seated in Ferme-Neuve -- its welcome centre and office are in Ferme-Neuve. Mont-Laurier is its gateway town to the south, which is a different, honest claim.
Can you walk to the beach and the airport road?
The Des Ruisseaux corridor carries the town west -- the Bibliotheque Des Ruisseaux, the Lac des Sources beach and, further out, the airport -- all in-town addresses on boul. des Ruisseaux, reached by road; the rail trail is the walking spine of the town's other side.
More to explore in Mont-Laurier
The header images on this page are illustrations drawn for Dayfari, not photographs. No verified photograph of the Mont-Laurier places named here (licence and subject checked) could be attested for this version, so those places are illustrated or described in text only, rather than borrowed from another town.
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