The Griffith Uplands Trail- A 9 km Hike in Griffith, ON

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The Griffith Uplands Trail has been on my radar for years, but it’s a bit out of the way so it took me awhile to get there! Recently our daughter spent the day with her Ouma, so we were determined to put our day to good use. Since I love getting my daughter outdoors but she hates long drives to get there, we decided to hike this far away trail while she was otherwise occupied.

The Griffith Uplands Trail is a well-established, well-marked trail in Griffith Ontario. It’s about 9 km long, and gets you climbing up and over four little mountains. The terrain itself wasn’t too technical, but and the up and down along the way nabbed us some pretty spectacular views.

The trail is open year round, but not maintained. There are no facilities at the trailhead, but there was a picnic spot with public outhouses just down the road. Dogs are allowed on the trail.

On the way there, and at the trailhead, we hit spots where we had no reception. So it’s a good idea to download directions and your trail map ahead of time. Or print one to bring with you!

As I write this, we’re still in the midst of the COVID Pandemic, so we didn’t spend any time stopping or exploring the little towns that we drove through on the way. Which was a bit of a shame because Renfrew looked super cute.

Getting There

The trailhead for the Griffith Uplands Trail is actually in Lower Madawaska River Provincial Park. It’s a non-operating park, which means that there are no facilities, just a bunch of green space. At the turn to get onto Hylands Creek Road, there were outhouses and picnic tables set up by the river.

The trail begins just off the side of the road on Hylands Creek Road. There’s a small parking lot with space for about six cars. You can use these coordinates to get there: 45.256172, -77.191656.

There’s also a small sign at the side of the road, signalling that you’ve arrived.

The paved road ended before we reached the parking lot, but the dirt road was in pretty good shape!

Near the back of the parking lot there was a large map posted. Looking at the map, the trail entered the forest on our left hand side.

The Trail

The Griffith Uplands Trail is a loop, with a section of trail leading out to where the loop begins. Immediately, I started to get excited about the trail because it was so skinny near the trailhead (typically the busiest section of any trail) that I knew not too many people hiked this trail.

Despite brush crowding the edge of the trail and making it really thin, the actual footpath was well worn into the dirt and easy to follow.

We also began to spot blue trail markers very early on. These were just spots where someone had used blue spray paint to mark the trails, but the marks had been made regularly and consistently. Very soon into the hike we had figured out we could trust the markers to keep us on the right track.

We found ourselves hiking up and down gentle hills. We were happy to be wearing pants because the trail was so grown in that underbrush rubbed our legs as we walked.

A quarter of a km into the trail we crossed over a small creek. On the other side, a deep hole under a big boulder looked a lot like a bear den to me. I zoomed past it quickly, with my imagination working overtime. Crossing the creek we had to look for the trail on the other side as the footpath wasn’t as obvious, but the blue markers were easy to spot on our left hand side.

The Trail Split

Part of the Griffith Uplands Trail follows an old logging road, and this is where it splits to form a loop. We hiked 0.8 km and then crossed over the road. We decided to keep going straight so that we could hike the loop clockwise and keep the easiest part for last. Here, there was a double blue mark to lead us back into the forest on the other side of the road.

We began to head more consistently uphill, although the hike still felt fairly gentle.

The trail began to give way to open rock face in sections, but the trail marking remained consistent and easy to follow. Here, some marking was done on the rock face to keep us on track, and small cairns had been placed to highlight the trail as well.

The First Lookout?

After hiking only 1.2 km we came to a spot on the trail where we had to wonder if we had reached the first lookout, because the treeline opened up and we were able to spot beautifully rolling hills on the horizon.

We headed down a fairly steep section after, and I was glad to have my hiking poles.

After checking the map, and spotting Jocko Lake through the trees, we realized the true lookout was actually at the 1.75 km mark. There were no signs indicating that this was the case, but the view was nice nonetheless.

Another steep downhill section followed this lookout. It was neat to see the forest change as we hiked along. The trail was constantly varied, and the terrain changed often.

Getting Lost

We caught our next nice view at the 2.4 km mark. Here, the forest led us out into a field, and we noticed that an ATV track had been worn into the dirt. We followed the ATV track back into the forest, but missed a blue mark on our right hand side that alerted us the trail went in that direction.

We followed the well-defined ATV track for a few hundred metres before realizing that we could no longer spot blue markers. Even this early on in our hike, we had figured out that the trail marking was so good that if we couldn’t see them we had probably (definitely) lost the trail.

So, we headed back the way we had come, and noticed the marker that we had missed. Writing this blog post, I’ve recalculated all the distances that I recorded as we hiked along, so they’re still accurate!

Back on track, we hiked along and the treeline opened up again to give us another lovely view at the 2.75 km mark.

Trail Changes

Our hike continued to take us up and down hill, along ridges, and over tiny little creeks. In some spots, the trail was fairly wet and muddy. It also widened and thinned out as we hiked along, and in some spots there were bushes like raspberry that would have scratched us if we hadn’t been wearing pants.

After hiking 3.8 km we found ourselves hiking along another ATV track. This time though, we made sure to keep an eye out for blue markers. Near here, and in a few other places, there were big trees that had fallen that we had to navigate around.

We had another quick view through the treeline at 4.2 km, and I stopped trying to figure out which view counted as an official lookout and which didn’t.

We climbed a few more hills that made us huff and puff, and then just after the 5 km mark we were fooled again by an ATV track! This time we figured it out much more quickly though, and retraced our steps to find the blue mark we had missed.

On this section of the trail a few white squares had been added as trail markers, but we continued to look out for the blue ones. The white squares disappeared quickly and we didn’t see them again for the rest of the trail.

A lot of nice views along the trail, but the best ones were on the east side of the loop.

The Best View

Not long after, around the 5.5 km mark, the trail led us out into another open field with a beautiful view, followed by an even better view! This view was the absolute best out of the entire hike.

We continued to descend, and were granted a view of the rover as we went. This section was very steep, and I had to do my first bum slide of the hiking season.

We headed downhill for quite some time, arriving at a really neat section of trail just after 6 km. where the forest floor was wet and we used fallen trees to traverse it.

The Logging Road

Just after that, we popped out onto the old logging road that the trail would follow for a while. Having looked at the map, we knew we needed to head to our right. There was also a blue spray painted arrow pointing us in that direction.

I had thought that walking along the road would be the easiest, driest, and least buggy section of the hike but I was wrong. The bugs seemed to come out in full force while we were on the logging road, and in some spots huge puddles were filled with water reaching up over our ankles. There were also a lot of ATVers through this section so we had to make sure to keep out of the way of them (and the puddles they splashed) whenever we heard them coming.

Still though, we were able to move through this section fairly quickly. We didn’t spot as many blue markers through this section, although they still popped up occasionally.

We had hiked 8 km before we saw the double blue marks on each side of the trail that alerted us we were back to the original trail split. Just beyond this there was also a big yellow “slow” sign posted, so you can look for those as a cue that you might be in the right spot too. We turned to our left to head back to the trailhead, and arrived back at the parking lot quickly.

In total, we hiked 8.8 kilometres on the Griffith Uplands Trail. It took us just under 3 hours (2:53), and was totally worth the time spent and the bug bites we received.

Trail Thoughts

The Griffith Uplands Trail is described as physically challenging and it is in terms of its length, as well as the fact that there are a few steep uphill and downhill sections. But overall the footwork isn’t really too technical, and the hike isn’t that strenuous (if you’re used to hiking!).

If you were looking to snag a great view with a little less work, you could decide to hike out along the logging trail and just visit the lookout on Godin Mountain. It would still be a long hike (about 7 km) but there would be a little less up and down involved. Truthfully though, you’d miss a lot of great trail doing it that way.

I’m really glad we got out to the Griffith Uplands Trail after all these years. It’s a long drive from Ottawa, but worth it. Later in the summer when there are less bugs, it would also be nice to stop and picnic along the Madawaska River and then hop in for a swim.

I hope this trip report has enough info to get you there too. Let me know in the comments, or share and tag a friend to start planning your next adventure!

Map and Elevation Gain

Whenever I’m hiking somewhere new, I tend to wonder about who was on, and who took care of that land before me. I’ve enjoyed using this website as a place to start learning more about the indigenous people whose land I’m on: Native-land.ca.

Gear We Brought

• Hiking Boots
• Wool Socks
• Rain Jackets
• Hiking Poles
• Mountain Warehouse Endeavour 30L Backpack
• SOL 2-Person Emergency Bivvy
• Compass
• Bear Bell
• First Aid Kit with Tick Removal Tool
• Nalgene Wide Mouth Bottle
• Snacks
• Headlamp
• Map