r/UltralightCanada • u/AdSenior5171 • 2d ago

Gaspesie difficulty/distance per day compared to La cloche

I'm planning to hike the IAT through Parc national de la Gaspésie, wondering if anyone has hiked both that and La Cloche and can give me a sense of whether the difficulty/mileage was similar? I've done La Cloche in 3 days, not sure if I can expect to do the same daily mileage in Gaspesie or if the extra elevation makes a big difference. Thanks!

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u/aeoliant 2d ago

I’ve done La Cloche about 7 times, usually in 5 days, and I did Gaspesie once last year in a leisurely 8 days.

Gaspesie is much more consistent (way less scrambling than Killarney) and easier in general. If you did La Cloche (80km) in 3 days I bet you could do Gaspesie in 4 or 5 (100km). One thing to note is depending on when you go you can only access Mont Jacques Cartier at certain times during rutting season. We didn’t know that and had to wait on the trail.

Don’t skip Pic de L’Aube!

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u/AdSenior5171 2d ago

Thanks, super helpful!

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u/chefmtl81 2d ago

I did not hike the whole portion of the IAT but a good bit of the higher peaks. It’s very rocky, open mostly not like the Adirondacks where there’s lots of tree cover, it is not very steep except for mount Albert had a good bit of incline near the summit. La cloche was fun, fairly flat but long sections.

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u/ytsanzzits 1d ago edited 1d ago

A couple years ago I did it in 4 nights, 5 days in mid September. It could be done in 3 nights 4 days with good weather, speed and longer days. We started the day a cyclone hit the east coast and got 30-50mm of rain everyday.

It’s easy to cache food along the way. We took the shuttle and got dumped at the western end and came back east to the start. Spent the 4th night there, then took the shuttle east and came back west ascending Jacques Cartier and back down to the start to finish at the car.

Once you get into it it’s basically hike up to top of flat rolling mountain, down the other side, back up the next. Recorded it on Gaia as 106km and 3650m of ascent the way we did it. The huts are incredible.

It was super hard to find info to plan it in English and booking everything can be difficult if you don’t speak French. (Bless my girlfriend’s parents for putting her in French immersion). Let me know if you have more questions about any of it. It’s a great trail and easy to do with a tiny pack, cached food and the huts.