What to Do at Bon Echo Provincial Park

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We recently headed out to Bon Echo Provincial Park for our second ever visit. And this time, we brought our toddler along for the trip! Bon Echo is a stunning park, with a ton to see and do.

Below, we’ve rounded up everything available to you at Bon Echo to help you plan your next trip.

Camping

Camping is, of course, one of the activities that you’ll enjoy at Bon Echo. There are a lot of different options for people to set up camp and spend time in the outdoors.

Car Camping

Bon Echo has hundreds of campsites designed for car camping or RVing. The last time we visited, we stayed in the Mazinaw Lake Campground, where sites were fairly close together and not overly private (but this is the case in most provincial parks). Close to the sites were outhouses and flush toilets with working sinks. There was also a larger comfort station available with indoor washrooms and showers.

Walk in Camping

There are 14 “walk-in” campsites at Bon Echo. These sites are from 100-300 metres away from where you park your car. So they can be used as a VERY gentle introduction to backcountry camping for those wishing to test their skills without heading too deep into the woods.

Backcountry Camping

Bon Echo has 5 backcountry campsites that can be hiked to, along the Abes and Essens Trail. Abes and Essens is just under 17 km long. Each site is far more isolated than the car camping sites, and close to the water.

There are also 25 canoe in campsites at Bon Echo that can be reached quite easily. The longest paddle is 1.5 km, providing a great opportunity for folks who want to try canoe camping but not go too far.

Cabins and Yurts

There are roofed accommodations available throughout the park, from cabins to yurts to soft-sided tents. These are all great options for when you don’t want to bother with putting up and taking down a tent, or want to have a bit of feeling like you can go “indoors” during your trip.

Four of the yurts have been built close together in what looks like a little yurt village near the south beach at Bon Echo. They’re really close together and there isn’t much shade available, so I’d probably try to avoid these unless they were your only option!

Swimming

Bon Echo has three beaches, and all of them are great.

The South Beach doesn’t actually have any sand, and is grassy up to the shoreline. Once in the water, it’s very shallow for a long way out, making it perfect for little ones. The South Beach is the beach that day users are permitted to visit. When we were there on a weekday though, we had the whole place to ourselves.

The Main Beach is sandy, and also stays fairly shallow for quite a while. There are more picnic tables at this beach than the others. And there were charcoal grills at this beach, but not at the other two.

The North Beach is in the Sawmill Bay Campground, and is the only beach with no parking. It’s sandy at the shoreline, and the water gets deep much more quickly than the other two beaches. This, combined with tall trees near the water making it shady, made for slightly colder water than at the other two beaches. The North Beach has the best view of the Mazinaw Rock.

Hiking

Bon Echo has six lovely hiking trails, perfect for anybody of any level of experience.

All the trails, with the exception of the Abes and Essens Trail, are under 5 km, with most being under 2 km.

We’ve hiked all of them (except the pet exercise trail), and our favorites are absolutely the Abes and Essens Trail and the Cliff Top Trail.

The Abes and Essens Trail is actually made up of 3 loops, so you don’t have to hike the entire length of it if you don’t want to. The two shorter loops (Clutes and Essens Lake) are 3.5 km and 9.6 km, making them great options for moderately difficult hikes. This is also the trail you would use to access the backcountry camping sites at Bon Echo.

The Cliff Top Trail has stunning views over Mazinaw Lake and is quite unique in that you have to cross the lake in order to get to it. It’s a rocky trail with a lot of stairs up the steep sections, so it’s challenging. But since the trail is only 1.5 km out and back, it’s still very doable. There are a lot of options for you to get there, even if you don’t have your own boat. You can rent a kayak or canoe from the park, or you can take the ferry across (although it wasn’t running when we went because of COVID). Paddling from the lagoon, where boats are rented, it’s only 500 metres to the trailhead.

Paddling

There are a lot of great places to paddle in Bon Echo, and this will be next up for us when we head back.

Joeperry and Pearson Lakes are both motorboat free.

Mazinaw Lake features the Mazinaw Rock, a stunning cliff that rises up out of the lake. Bon Echo is on Algonquin territory, and along the face of the rock there are hundreds of pictographs painted by Algonquin ancestors. Please understand that viewing this art is a privilege, and if you choose to visit, you must leave it exactly as you found it.

The Kishkebus Canoe route is one I want to paddle soon. It’s 21 km long, and loops behind Mazinaw Rock. There’s a 1.5 km portage from Mazinaw Lake to Kishkebus Lake that I’m a bit intimidated by, but I think I can do it!

Ready to Visit?

Bon Echo has, in my humble opinion, the best of both worlds. Beautiful backcountry options and routes to challenge yourself with, alongside traditional car camping sites, leisurely hiking trails, and lovely beaches to relax at. We had an absolute blast camping with our toddler, and I think you will too if you decide to visit.

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!