The website is operated by the Friends of Algonquin, but note that these announcements are prefaced with

"Ontario Parks is reporting that the 2016 opening dates for some areas of Algonquin Park will be delayed until May 4 or 6, 2016 (subject to change) due to winter conditions, ice covered lakes, and inaccessible snow covered roads."


Barbara
 

Last edited by Barbara (5/04/2016 7:31 am)

OK so the park website was finally updated with some useful information about the status of the backcountry: 

The only backcountry campsites that are closed outright are those on Dickson Lake and Hardy Bay, due to "public health concern" (I assume it's related to the summer's algae blooms).

However, all access points along the Brent Road are closed until tentatively May 6, along with the campground, ranger cabins and day hiking trails, due to snow conditions on the road. You can reserve campsites in that part of the park but you'd have to theoretically get to them from other access points.

4wd is recommended for getting to Basin, McManus, Brain, Tim, or Mag. It's also recommended for driving the Brent road, if you were to want to drive it notwithstanding that nothing on it is open.

For frontcountry users, the Centennial Ridges Road and the Whiskey Rapids Trail are closed. The Centennial Ridges Trail itself is also and separately listed as closed due to no road access, which doesn't really make sense if the Rock Lake access point is open, since you could access the trail off Coon Lake... and in the winter the trail is considered open for those who want to walk the road in.

So…people were back country camping on Pen without permits? Or am I misunderstanding? On Saturday morning I was out walking the dog and went to the boat launch at around 6am.  There were  a fair number of cars there, which I thought was odd, but assumed people had just gotten up early to go fishing or something.  We didn't even bring our canoe (which I was furious about…when we left, the pics all looked like there was lots of ice)

I spent most of the weekend walking with the dog. According to my Fitbit, I logged almost 30,000 steps on Saturday, about 18.6km.  If anyone saw someone walking a Blue Heeler, that was us.

You aren't misunderstanding Flybites . . . I was wondering how they got vehicle permits, but my guess was they booked Rock Lk campground sites, then just left them empty and went interior.  The missing dash permit would be brutally obvious otherwise I'd think . . .

There was no reason not to have Rock/Pen/Clydegale/Galeairy/Whitefish back country open, other than just not enough other places I guess, so blanket ban was easier . . .  All of the back country sites we passed were better drained and dryer than about 50% of the campground B sites, many pooled with a lot of standing water!

The only safety factor would be if a lake is 1/2 ice out, you could get pinned in somewhere by an ice flow. 4-5 years ago we had to sign a waiver to that effect going in across Cache . . . Seemed fair to make SURE we knew what the potential was.

With the MODIS sat images though, we knew we'd have no trouble day-tripping to Pen or beyond on the big lakes.  The ice flight hardly seemed necessary (although I love the aerial shots . . .)

I guess the lesson is to either a) wait until the last minute to make plans next spring or b) make em for Mothers day of after and hope its not an early year with blackflies in full flight by then!