Offroad Escapades

We love the outdoors and we love exploring the roads less travelled with our Jeep Wrangler. We live in Mississauga, 35 km West of Toronto and take any opportunity to head North. These are our escapades.

Beginning in the late 80's, Algonquin Provincial Park was an almost yearly trip. We had a tent, we had a canoe and Algonquin Park back then was not as busy as it is today. During peak season it is now difficult to get a reservation.

In 2011 we started to document and publish the Algonquin Park trail head coordinates. Websites didn't publish GPS coordinates back then, it was still too new. Around that time car GPS became affordable. It was also the early days of Smartphones and most didn't know what to do with GPS yet. We witnessed many changes. Not just in technology, but also up at Algonquin Park.

Looking through some old pictures, we just had to show the decaying train trestle on Cache Lake. The first image was from 1990, the last from a few years ago. Yeah, it's falling apart.


A growing number of website visitors were looking for information about the hiking trails and GPS coordinates. This lead to a Canada wide collection of links and GPS coordinates. This collection is growing as we find new places.

Be aware that the GPS coordinate collection is exactly that, a few pictures of the trail head and a link for the GPS. It is not our primary intention to document the trails neither do we claim that we hiked all the trails. Although we did most of them. In summer 2011 on our way to British Columbia, we visited the Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. Yup, the Dodge Dakota did the cross-Canada trip a few times. We added these trail head GPS coordinates to the collection.

2015 - The Jeep
At the end of October we went to our dealership and found a Jeep Sahara Unlimited. A 2013 model owned by a real estate agent. No modifications and no off-roading done. Didn't take long until we added a few extras and planned our first trip.

2016 - Cross Canada Trip and the Year of the Camping Trailer
This summer was the first Cross-Canada trip with the Jeep - and the fifth time we drove the 4,500 km from Mississauga Ontario to Whistler British Columbia (BC).

We knew that we'll hit a lot of bugs crossing the Prairies, so the first upgrade was a Mesh Grill to protect the radiator. We made it to BC and back without incident and returned with lots of good memories. One of them was the Poison Mountain trip. We stayed at hotels and used up all our Reward Points to pay for part of this trip. We saw many camping trailers, from big fifth-wheel that made our home look like a shack to small tear-drop models that provide shelter and minimal cooking comfort.

It was Time to seriously investigate Camping Trailers.
End of September, we already found a used 13 foot Prolite Mini in perfect condition.


2017 - Canada's 150th Birthday
Victoria Day Long Weekend in 2017, the first time we took the trailer out for a few days. We spent the time at Marten River Provincial Park.

End of July we stopped at Finlayson Point Provincial Park for one night.
Next morning we continued to Nagagamisis Provincial Park where we stayed for a few days.

End of August, we found the perfect place and time for blueberries at the Esker Lakes Provincial Park.

2018 - 125 Years Ontario Provincial Parks It is February, it is cold and it was amazing. I postponed Winter Camping for way too many years. I have all the equipment but nobody that shares my enthusiasm, not even my wife. So I went alone. It looks as if this will be a yearly occurrence from now on. Victoria Day Long Weekend we went back to Marten River Provincial Park. On Saturday we drove to Red Squirrel Road. On Sunday we explored the Finlayson Lake and found perfect condtions.
In August we visited the Maritimes. One of the destinations ignored on our whish list for way too many years. This was also the first longer road trip to smoothen out some of the wrinkles with the camping trailer and the Jeep. The Maritimes - what a great trip it was.
On the way back we took a detour via Esker Lakes Provincial Park to stock up on blueberries. But not without exploring a new raod, the Tower & Barnet Lake Road just north of the park.

2019 - Great Winter and searching for the Northern Lights

We headed north to Huntsville the first week in January. The weather wasn't that great, but it was a very relaxing trip. A few weeks later we decided to visit the Windy Lake Provincial Park. The whole area got a major dumping of snow. It was amazing.

The search for the Northern Lights didn't start yet. We are planning to visit Yellowknife on our way back from Whistler. The camping trailer is getting some upgrades and not all of them are done yet. But we still have some time before we leave.

Next Page: Tower & Barnet Lake Road