It rained during the night and was still drizzling at bit in the morning when I woke to the sounds of logging machinery in the distance. I managed to make my breakfast in my tent vestibule and pack up during a lull. I started off on the trail in my rain gear but it had pretty much stopped raining and I quickly got very hot so I stripped it off after just a couple of kms, when I reached a foot bridge over a river.

After crossing the bridge, the trail started to climb along the side of a waterfall, which was rather lovely. It finally came out on a summit of an unnamed mountain and then had more gentle undulating ups and downs along the top. There was a side trail that’s a few kms out and back to Mont de l’Ouest, but I didn’t do it since I wanted to save my ankles as much as possible and given the cloudiness, I wasn’t sure that it would even be possible to see the view. So, I went on to the Pic de l’Aigle along an easyish section of trail. From that summit, there’s a nice view down over Lac Matane, however, there’s no real viewpoint or place to sit and enjoy the view from so I ended up just plomping down in the middle of the trail again to eat.

I didn’t see any eagles despite the name of the mountain or the fact that the trail notes describe the Reserve as the ‘royaume de l’aigle’. I was apprehensive about the upcoming downhill into Lac Matane after yesterday’s awful downhill into camp, but the trail wasn’t too steep and wasn’t rocky and rooty so I could just jog/shuffle down the steeper sections. At the bottom, you come out at the main road through the Reserve and there’s a few cabins, a covered picnic area and a boat put-in for the lake. As I emerged, a woman left the picnic area and seemed to be making a b-line to intercept me. It turned out to be Adèle, the French woman, who had been a few days ahead of me and feeling lonely (as per all her entries in the abri logs). She wanted to know if Stéphane was headed to Lac Matane, which I knew was his plan although he and Marianne were behind me. I stopped and had a snack with her and she told me how the previous night she’d been alone at the Abri Lac Gros Ruisseau, the one after Lac Matane, and that all night she’d heard coyotes howling, which had absolutely terrified her so she had barely slept. In the morning she’d decided to turn around and try to meet up with Stéphane, who she had met a few days ago, so that she could hike with others as this was the last straw for her. It seemed to be threatening to start raining again, so I left her after a while and went to find the campsite, which was down a trail after a very short stint on the road.

The camping area was a beautiful site on Lac Matane with three platforms and the abri. The water was crystal clear and the bottom in front of the abri was pebbly, not muddy. If it had been sunny (and if I had a bathing suit and towel), I would definitely have swum. I set up my tent to dry and was stretching, when it did start to rain again. I hadn’t unpacked my bag, so I just grabbed it went into the abri to wait it out. Adele showed up not long after this, having gotten tired of waiting alone for Stéphane. He and Marianne showed up eventually and the dog did a great shake off all over us. The rain had really set in and I decided to sleep in the abri with the others instead of transferring my stuff into the tent.