Altair 4

Mrs. Altair and I are giving serious thought to a vacation in Québec next summer. Our initial thought was to travel to Tadoussac, QC for whale watching and spend time in Québec City. But Mrs. Altair mentioned Le P'tit Train du Nord bike trail, north of Montreal, as part of an extended vacation.

I'm looking any experience with the trail, which shuttle service was used, where you left your car (not sure if that's going to be an issue or not), what about bike rentals (in case we just fly).

Besides the websites, are there any recommended books about the trail, the history of the area? There's a really good guide for the Great Allegheny Passage and I was wondering if there's something similar for the the linear park.

Thanks!

IPassGas

We left our car at the start of the trail and then rode the trail in/out for 5 days, camping along the way. The trail is great. We will bike St Lawrence/Saguenay/Gaspe next summer. Whales? Last time we biked St. Lawrence, did not see whales, they must have been hiding Will keep an eye out.

axolotl

I biked Le P'tit Train du Nord perhaps 15 years ago. I parked in the big free parking area at the southern terminus and had reserved a shuttle to take me and my bike to the northern terminus, Mont Laurier. I don't recall the name of the shuttle service. It was all very easy to arrange and inexpensive. I rode the trail in early September and the trail wasn't busy at that time, but the weather was excellent. The northern part of the trail in particular goes through a very pretty, sparsely populated area with lots of forest & lakes. I took a little off-trail excursion on my bike when I got to Mont Tremblant. The trail wasn't paved at all at the time I rode it, but the surface was good. I believe that much of the trail is paved now. It's a great trail.

Altair 4

This is what stimulated our discussion: Whales in the St. Lawrence along with a relative diagnosed with a serious cancer. I reached an epiphany of "do it now" 'cause there might not be a later.

djb

you said it. I hope you can get this trip set.
you should bee able to find easily the shuttle company etc. I used it about 7 , 8 years ago and I assume it survived covid. Let me know if you need any specific details and I can make some calls in French if that would help.
when I did it, you pay for parking at the train station parking lot, right where the shuttle leaves from. Details of a 5 day car stay should be available and the shuttle company should be able to answer in English this stuff, and I could confirm if need be.
cost back then all the way up to Mont Laurier was about 75 or so, probably more now.
A bit of a long trip, 3 hours if think, cuz bus stops and drops off people at earlier spots along the way., so a late start, ie 11am from Mont Laurier.

Very pretty route, and a good system of support options --carry your bags from b+b to next , for example. No idea of costs. Good resources of hotels, bed and breakfasts etc and the odd campgrounds.

let me know of other questions

djb

From the ptit train trail south of Mont tremblant maybe 4 weeks ago.

garryg

We rode the Ptit Trains DU Nord 3 years ago in late Sept.We usually camp but stayed in Auberges each night. Thats french for b and b. I highly reccomend this trip. The food at the Auberges was incredible. We parked at the south end and took the shuttle.

djb

Altair, did you ever find any mentions of books etc on the history of the region as you were enquiring about? Logging would have always been the main industry, and then tourism grew and grew. We had an aunt who told me of taking the ptit train up north to downhill ski as a young woman, would have been in the late 40s, early 50s?

fishboat

I'd be interested in what you come up with. We planned on riding the Le P'tit Train du Nord in 2020..but that didn't happen and 2021 wasn't any better. Much like you, it would have been part of a larger vacation. At this point we're thinking it might be a good trip in 2022. We'd probably ride up to the trail from Burlington, VT. Maybe take the train to Quebec City as a side trip...still working on options..

djb

I rode from Montreal to Boston once and passed through Burlington, it's a nice ride and getting onto la route verte is a pretty good way of entering Montreal by bike once you get closer to the city. Including the ptit train trail would certainly add in an interesting and changing landscape to ride through-to me this is always interesting for a bike trip, changing geography.

fishboat

Thanks djb. I have the route approximately worked out and it appears to be very nice between dedicated trails and rural roads. RWGPS estimates 12,000+ ft of climbing over 516 miles..which I totally don't believe. Still tweaking the route and considering options along the way.

djb

Once out of Montreal, onto the south shore, getting onto quiet rural roads was fairly easy, and made for a pleasant ride down to rouses point, NY Then went down the Champlain island two lanes. I've ridden up the left shore NY side once, coming from lake George, but preferred the Champlain islands route.

Altair 4

Nothing in English. Chapters bookstores (Canadian chain) has an ebook in French, but my French is not good non-existent.

We'd shuttle to the north-end, too. I'm still trying to figure out how to get to Montreal (drive? fly? fly directly, or fly to Burlington, VT?). Rent bikes? Take ours if we drive? What do we do with them if/when we reach Québec City and go on to Tadoussac? Lots of thoughts up in the air yet. I've got a bunch of miles on American Airlines and a bunch of points with Hilton. I'd like to take advantage of these for this vacation.

Mrs. Altair is not up to that level of riding. Heck, I probably am not up to that level, either. Thanks for the idea of taking the train up to Québec City, though. We actually honeymooned in both cities in the early 1980's and that was our plan to get between cities. VIA rail cancelled our train ride and it turned into a bus ride (not nearly as romantic!). Might see how that would work. I'll post as we move closer. I need to get through the holidays and issues with our 20 year old kiddo who is having a rough go with things right now. Still hopeful this will fall into place, but I keep thinking maybe I'm trying to accomplish too much in one trip. It's a lot of distance and I don't want to spend a lot of time just travelling.

djb

altair, not surprising to me that there isnt that much info in English.
this morning while having coffee I took a quick look at the shuttle system website, and it appears to still be around, and still offers shuttle service of baggage, and also had bike rentals avail also. This could be a big help, but then of course, it really depends on if like me , you prefer to ride your own bike/s.
I have no idea how car rentals are and will be next year. Seems to me that rental prices were really high last year, not from personal experience, but reading about that.
Your own car is of course advantageous, but flying is a big saver of days....anyway, like you said, you have to figure out stuff.

Quebec City and Tadoussac etc and that whole region is neat to see. Especially for Americans, Quebec City and the old part of it is a really fun place to see, really really is like walking around in places in France, and then the St Lawrence river etc is a neat geographical thing to see also.

good luck playing around with options

djb

oh, for both of you. It is possible to ride from Montreal and get to St Jerome by bike paths now. Ya, its going to involve a certain amount of urbanish riding, but from downtown its probably 55, 60kms to St Jerome, the "official" start , or end , of the 200k trail (Mont Laurier at the top)
I've never done all of it, but have been on some of the bike paths leading up there.

Altair, I've driven by car from Montreal to the Tadoussac area a afew times, and its a fair drive , 6 hours. Parts of it are nice though, but as you say, you have to figure out travel days and all that time spent in a car.

djb

hey there mr fish, ya I don't know about that elevation gain. I have to think in meters, and 12k miles is probably close to 3500m and that doesnt sound right. I just looked at google maps for montreal to mont laurier and by bike it says elevation gain is about 700m or lets say 2500ft, over 256kms. Seems to me from memory that riding from Montreal to Burlington is not hilly really, so I suspect that 12,000 ft thing is off.
Im sure its easy to find rwgps stuff for le ptit train route, to get exact numbers.

oh btw, ptit train de nord is short form for "petit"--small, train, so ptit.
also, north of Montreal around Mont Tremblant etc etc is notoriously bad for black flies early in the summer. I don't know if you guys know what black flies are, but they are really annoying little buggers, so dont plan riding up there in early june etc. Ive ridden there in late spring, before they got bad, and later in summer, but we went camping in the Tremblant area about 20+ years ago with kids in probably early june or something, and it was really unpleasant because of the black flies. I spent lot of my childhood canoe camping, so have reasonable experience with bad bugs.

just a heads up anyway.
black flies tend to get less as the summer goes on, as black flies need cold, moving water to reproduce, the opposite of mosquitoes.

fishboat

Yah..I checked the route in RWGPS when broken into the Ptit trail (3400ft/1036m over 140 miles/225km) and Burlington to Montreal (1800ft/548m over 103 miles/165km). No idea what RWGPS is doing when they get combined. I let RWGPS do an out and back on the Ptit trail which adds an extra 3400ft, the remaining 7000ft??

Black flys..we know them well. Black fly season in WI, MN, UP-MI is in May/June,, similar to what you're describing. They can drive a person insane. Thank you for the heads up. If we do the trip it would likely be in the latter part of the summer or early September...just to make sure the snow melt is done and the ice is out of the lakes .

Altair 4

Like Fishboat, I know about black flies. In the early '90's, I took my Dad fishing on the Big French River in Ontario. Purposely planned it for beyond black fly season, but that sort of put us into mosquito season. During the day, no problem but when dusk came...OMG. We stayed a lodge with cabins that had screened porches. At night on the porch, all you could hear was the high pitched whine of them.

Altair 4

We thoroughly enjoyed both Montreal and Quebec City. We've been back to Montreal a few years back. We enjoyed the Old Port in Montreal and some of the surrounding restaurants. One favorite was Olive et Gourmando on St. Paul. It's been forever since we've been to Quebec City - well, since 1984. Looking forward to seeing it again!