The Mont Mégantic National Park is well known for its true winter wonderland landscapes for a few months of the year. It’s also a great hiking destination, and the Mont Saint-Joseph trail is one of our favorites for enjoying the beautiful frozen scenery of the national park, reaching an altitude of 1105 m. The trail offers several fantastic viewpoints and is easily combined with a few other park trails so that you can hit more than just the one summit during your hike. Below we present our Winter Hiking Guide for The Mont Saint-Joseph Trail, which we hope will help you get the most out of your hiking adventure in the area.
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About the Mont Saint Joseph Trail
The Mont Saint Joseph Trail is one of the most popular trails of the Mont-Mégantic National Park. The trail is located in the eastern portion of the park, known as the Observatory Sector. It’s known for its beautiful winter scenery, snow-covered pines, and frozen forests. In our opinion, it’s the most challenging single-summit trail in the park (there are longer and harder trails that combine several summits – more on these below). Although the trail is neither the longest nor the one with the most elevation, it has the steepest elevation grade of all the trails in the park where you will gain close to 400 m over the first 2km of the trail. The good news is that after this first stretch, the trail becomes significantly more flat as you will be walking along a slowly rising ridgeline.
Daily access fees and Annual passes
Quebec National Parks are managed by the SÉPAQ, a government agency that manages all provincial parks and wildlife preserves in Québec.
There is a limit to the number of visitors that can enter any Québec SÉPAQ National Park on any given day. It is therefore strongly recommended that you purchase your daily right of access online before a visit or that you acquire an annual pass.
The daily pass ($9.85 (2024)) can be purchased here up to 30 days before a visit.
The annual pass can be purchased here either for unlimited access to a single national park ($49.25 (2024)) or for unlimited access to all SÉPAQ national parks ($88.50 (2024)). Even if you have an annual pass, we still recommend arriving early in the morning or mid-to-late afternoon to avoid showing up to a filled parking lot.
Orientation – How to Get to Mont Mégantic National Park
Due to the park’s remoteness, the best way to reach the park is with your own vehicle. Located in southeastern Québec, the Observatory Sector of the Mont-Mégantic National Park is roughly 2h30 from either Montréal or Québec City.
If you don’t have your own vehicle, a transportation service is offered by Navette Nature from Montreal. However, service to Mont Mégantic National Park is very infrequent (at most once a month).
The trailhead itself is a short walk from the parking lot. For more information on the National Park or the other trails you can find here, you can check out our Guide on the Best Winter Hiking Trails in Mont Mégantic National Park
When to Go?
To experience a proper winter hike and beautiful white landscapes, it’s best to plan your visit between mid-December and mid-March. That being said, there are year-to-year differences regarding the early and late winter snow conditions. If you would like to visit early or late in the winter season, it’s best to check the park conditions first. You can generally find them listed at the top of the national park page.
It’s also a great hike to do in the early morning. The light is perfect for photography and the trail isn’t too crowded.
Hiking and Safety Tips
It is highly recommended to wear crampons/traction cleats under your shoes or boots when hiking this trail. You can rent some from the visitor center for $8 or buy your own on Amazon for $20-$25.
The exception to that rule is in the event of large amounts of recent snowfall, in which case you might be better off using snowshoes than hiking with boots and cleats. The national park details the recent snowfall stats and the trail conditions (densely packed snow or fresh powdered snow). The visitor center also rents out snowshoes if need be.
Also, always bear in mind that no matter how cold it is at the base of the mountain, it’s going to be even colder at the summit (and windier), so remember to dress appropriately. It’s generally recommended to wear fewer layers to start with since you will warm up as you start to hike. But it’s a great idea to pack some extra warm gear for when you stop or reach the summit.
Winter Hiking Packing List
Crampons / Ice Cleats – These are a must-have to help you with those steep ascents/descents or navigate icy trail conditions.
External Battery – Cold weather significantly affects cell phone battery drainage. Best to be prepared with an external power source to recharge your phone if needed.
Hiking poles – These can be particularly useful in winter, especially when not wearing any crampons or ice cleats.
Hand warmers – if you are like us and often remove your gloves to take pictures, having little hotties around care be hand life savers in freezing weather.
All Trails subscription – comes in really handy for areas with little or no cell reception, as the annual subscription allows you to download trail maps for offline use.
Mont Saint-Joseph Trail Details and Map
Because of the ways the trails are interconnected in the Observatory Sector of the park, it’s to create various trail variations and combinations. We will present some of the most popular combinations below. The ascents are roughly the same for all options, it’s intermediate routes and the descents that vary between them.
Option 1: Shortest Version, Out & Back Route
This might seem like the simplest route, but it’s particularly steep the entire way. The descent is certainly steep in sections and the use of crampons would be highly recommend. For this reason, and because we generally prefer loop trails to vary the scenery, our preference is to follow option 2 for hiking the Mont Saint-Joseph trail.
Distance: 7.2 km
Route Type: Out-and-back
Elevation gain: 486 m
Trailhead: Right behind the visitor center
AllTrails rating: (4.5, 336 ratings (2024))
Average Duration: 2h30-3h
Not an AllTrails member yet? We highly recommend signing up for either their free or paid membership plans. The free plan allows you to find new trails and plan routes but it can only be used while hiking if you have access to mobile data. The paid membership plan (AllTrails+) allows you to download trail maps for offline use and provides live progress updates and off-route notifications.
If you are still uncertain – you should know that the All Trails mobile application was voted the 2023 iPhone App of the Year by Apple.
Option 2: Mid-length version, Partial Loupe Route (Double Peak Combo)
This is the option that we will cover in greater detail below, as it’s the most popular version suggested by the National Park (although surprisingly it doesn’t appear as an option on AllTrails) and it’s also the best option in our view that you can complete in under 4 hours. It’s nonetheless easy to follow on AllTrails, as the routes depicted there are identical to those found on the National Park website.
Distance: 10.1 km
Route Type: Loop
Elevation gain: 460 m (cumulative elevation gain: 505 m)
Trailhead: Right behind the visitor center
Average Duration: 3h30-4h30
Option 3a: Longest version, Full Loop Route (Double Peak Combo)
If you would like to reach another summit while in the national park but don’t have the time to undertake more than one hike, then the Mont Saint-Joseph and Mont Mégantic combo trail might be perfect for you. You essentially be going up one trail to one peak, then taking a connecting path of 4 km to the other, before heading back down. The combo trail is 14.8 km in length, with over 700 m in cumulative elevation gain, and takes on average around 5 hours to complete. For more information on what the Mont Mégantic trail looks like, you can check out our guide on that trail here.
Option 3b: Longest version, Full Loop Route (Triple Peak Combo)
If you are willing to do option 3a, honestly you might as well do option 3b as you will get to hit a third summit. Adding the Victoria peak doesn’t add much extra elevation gain, but it does add about an extra 2 km for a total of 16.7 km and takes an average of 5h30 – 6h to complete.
Mont Saint-Joseph Trail Summary and Description
As we stated above, we will describe trail option #2 here.
First section: The Ascent Part I and the Pèlerins Viewpoint
The trailhead is located right behind the visitor center. From there, the trail starts to climb with a steeper grade that will remain fairly constant until the 1.3 km mark, at which point you will cross an intersection. Here you have the option to continue straight to stay on the path to Mont Saint-Joseph or go left for a short 0.2 km (each way) section that leads to a belvedere with a nice view (Belvedere du Soleil).
From this point on the ascent gets even steeper and will remain that way for roughly the next kilometer until you reach a plateau where you will find a wooden cabin (Refuge des Pèlerins) and the trail’s first official viewpoint.
Second section: The Ascent Part II and the Mont Saint-Joseph Viewpoint
This was our favorite part of the trail, in part because the weather had briefly cleared up and we had beautiful blue skies, but also because this is where the winter wonderland scenery was at its most magical. This was particularly true in the brief section that ascends steeply between the previous viewpoint and the Mont-Saint-Joseph viewpoint.
After you have enjoyed those stunning frozen landscapes, continue onwards for a few hundred meters until you eventually reach the trail’s second cabin, though a much more modern-looking one (refuge du Mont Saint-Joseph), whose location coincides with the trail’s second official viewpoint.
Third section: The Plateau and the Pic des Crépuscules Viewpoint
The next kilometer is relatively flat along a forested ridgeline (the forest is dense and tall enough to limit any decent views of the distant scenery. The most interesting sight along this section (at least until you reach the third viewpoint at the Pic des Crépuscules), is a signpost illustrating the maximum amount of snowfall received each year since 2005.
There’s definitely no clear pattern as the years were all over the place, but 2024 was clearly on pace to hit a record low with a little over a month of winter left.
Shortly after you reach the Pic des Crépuscules, the trail’s final viewpoint. Unfortunately for us, the weather took a turn and it started snowing, limiting the visibility.
Fourth section: The Return
The return is fairly straightforward and generally not very steep compared to the ascent – you’ll take about 5.5 kilometers to descend what you climbed in the first 3.5 kilometers. The first forested section you descend through was clearly more frozen and frost-covered than any other section during the trail, which made for an interesting slight change of scenery.
Eventually, you’ll come across a third cabin (Refuge du Col-des-Trois-Sommets), from which point you’ll take a large path that’s shared with cross-country skiers for about one kilometer (though we never came across any despite using this trail section several times, as it is also part of the return leg for the Mont Mégantic Trail).
The final two and a half kilometres of the trail follows a lovely creek that will provide a nice relaxing soundscape to this final portion of the hike.
You will eventually emerge from the forest about 30 feet from where you entered it.
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Well, that wraps it up! We hope you enjoyed our Guide on the Mont Saint-Joseph Winter Hiking Guide and that it will prove useful for planning your trip to the beautiful Eastern Townships.
You might also be interested in these pages:
6 Quebec Hiking Trails that Are Stunning in Winter
Best Winter Hiking Trails in Charlevoix region
Best Winter Hiking Trails in Mont Mégantic National Park
Best Winter Hiking Trails in Sutton (Eastern townships)
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