Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Lac Taureau, Saint-Zénon, the Matawin dam – these places are renowned in the ATV world for the quality and diversity of their trails. I was lucky enough to discover a small part of them during a three-day trip organized by the Aventure Quad Québec club in early July.
For this adventure, we stayed at Le Cabanon Inn in the municipality of Saint-Zénon. The site features a huge parking lot for our trailers, a gas station, locked quad parking, 58 rooms, a restaurant, a bar, an indoor pool and a spa. In short, everything to satisfy quad and snowmobile customers alike. The inn will be our base camp, and our guide has prepared a daily route of around 200 km to explore the region.
Lac Taureau
The first day we tour the famous Lac Taureau. This 45 km-long lake is a reservoir created to regulate the flow of the Saint-Maurice River and its hydroelectric power stations in the early 1930s with the construction of the Matawin dam on the river of the same name. The area is renowned for its wide sandy beaches and numerous vacation and accommodation facilities.
We leave the inn under rather cloudy skies. Our group consists of 44 people on 26 mountain bikes. The trails are very varied, with large sections of forest track and smaller, rockier ones. In the morning, a few spells of rain kept the dust down, and the skies remained grey. We pass east of Lac Taureau to cross the Matawin dam and dine near the Villier dike. We return to the west side of the lake, passing a few mud holes to get our machines dirty before heading back to the inn, all without having seen a single drop of water from Lac Taureau.
Ouareau forest
During lunch on our second day, the sky darkened enough for the satellite TV to stop receiving the signal. A good thunderstorm ensues, ending just as we leave on our quads for Saint-Côme. Just before the first break, we take a more technical trail where we have to carefully position our wheels to get over the obstacles. A steep descent over large boulders completes this stretch of road, where some participants broke a sweat and others had a great time. We then ride through a beautiful landscape under the Hydro towers, where we can see a good part of our group in the distance. We had lunch near the Ouareux hut and the Beaulne River bridge, then headed back to Saint-Zénon, avoiding the more difficult part of the trail in the morning.
The falls
Our third day is spent in glorious sunshine, with a return of the dust. The plan is to visit the Patoche Falls, but the trail is uncertain. Once we reach the junction leading to the falls, I scout ahead with our guide before taking the whole group up the short trail. After just one kilometer, it’s obvious that we can’t move our group. The risk of getting stuck is too great, and some passages are too narrow.
We turn back and continue on our way. A few kilometers further on, the guide comes across a collapsed bridge. He quickly decides to make the afternoon trip. It’s when the unexpected happens that an experienced guide makes all the difference – some participants never even knew there was a problem. We dined at Calvaire Falls Park, with special permission from the site authorities, before heading back along beautiful forest trails.
This region of Quebec is well worth discovering. There’s so much variety in the types of trails and accommodation on offer that it’s impossible not to find something to suit you. I’ll definitely be back!
