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We decided to check out the Cedar Grove Trail on a sunny Sunday morning last weekend. It was absolutely stunning.

The Cedar Grove Trail is in Marlborough Forest, southwest of the city. Marlborough Forest is a beautiful area that’s never too crowded, and dogs are allowed year round (bonus!).

This trail is great because all types of vehicles are prohibited. There are a lot of ATV and snowmobile trails throughout Marlborough Forest, but on this day we knew we’d get some peace and quiet.

Marlborough Forest is actually where we first came to find out about the Rideau Trail. We were out walking one day and kept noticing the Rideau Trail’s unique makers (triangles). We decided we had to find out what they were all about, and started hiking the trail not long after.

The Cedar Grove Trail is actually part of the Rideau Trail, and takes you onto one of the Rideau Trail’s “blue loops.” The Rideau Trail tends to add these loops only when doing so really adds to the hike, so that right there told us that this trail would be worth exploring.

Hunting is allowed in the forest, so if you’re heading out in the fall, make sure you’ve checked the hunting dates for the season. If you choose to go during hunting season, wear something very bright. When we went, the hunting dates for the 2014 season were still posted… Not very helpful.

Getting There

Marlborough Forest is pretty big- nearly 30,000 acres, and there are a number of access points to the forest off of Roger Stevens Drive.

In order to access the Cedar Grove Trail, we parked in parking lot E3. You can use these coordinates to get there: 45.072315, -75.819475. It’s actually pretty easy to drive past this parking lot by accident. There are signs by the side of the road, but Roger Stevens is an 80 kph zone, so the signs can come and go pretty quickly.

The parking lot isn’t huge, but it had space for about ten to fifteen cars. There was nothing at the trailhead except signs. No garbage cans, no picnic tables, no outhouses- nothing.

There was a bulletin board there, but it didn’t appear to be updated often, if ever.

The trailhead was at the back of the parking lot. There’s no way we could have missed it.

The Route

We started off from the trailhead on a really wide trail, and headed into the forest. The trail remained quite wide for a little while- it actually had the feel of a logging road instead of a trail for the first part of our walk.

As I mentioned before, the Cedar Grove Walking Trail is also part of the Rideau Trail, so we followed the Rideau Trail markers through the forest. The Rideau Trail Association does an amazing job of maintenance, and their trail markers are always perfectly placed so that it’s almost impossible to get lost.

We hiked for 0.6 kilometres before the trail split to form a loop that surrounds the Etang Rogers Pond. There were trail markers here, so we knew that if we went left here we would be on “the blue loop,” whereas if we went straight we would remain on the main Rideau Trail for a little longer.

We decided to continue straight, which ultimately had us completing the loop in a counter-clockwise fashion. After hiking for less than 100 metres past the split, we reached the shoreline of the pond, and got some pretty beautiful views.

Soon after reaching the shoreline, there was a short bridge over a dam that we had to cross. It was a really warm winter day, and it was pretty cool to see the water moving through the dam below us.

We carried on through the field, and re-entered the forest right beside the shoreline after hiking for a kilometre. This is where the trail got really great. It became a single track, and with the forest full of cedar it felt as though the trees were closing in on us (but in a nice way…).

The Blue Loop

We had been hiking for 1.5 kilometres when we came to a second split in the trail. The main Rideau Trail branched off to our right, but we went straight and began following the blue markers to loop back around the pond.

We crossed another short bridge and then followed a boardwalk through the forest for a little bit. About halfway through the “blue loop,” we came across a neat looking shelter. I don’t think I would stay there overnight, but it was kind of cool to see how it had been built.

The trail continued around the pond, and at times we were close enough to the shoreline to see out over the pond, but there were no unobstructed views or lookouts on this section of the route.

The Return

The Blue Loop section of the trail was two kilometres in total, so after hiking for roughly 3.5 kilometres, we arrived back to the first split in the trail. We turned to our right to head back towards the parking lot.

The Cedar Grove Trail was 4 kilometres in total. We were moving pretty quickly because the whole trail was so flat, and we covered the distance in just over an hour.

This trail would be a pretty great option any time of year (with the exception of hunting season). It’s a really nice spot for when you want to bring a dog along, and would probably be good for families with younger children too, because it’s not very strenuous.

I hope this trip report has enough info to get you there too. Let me know in the comments, or share and tag a friend to start planning your next adventure!

Map and Elevation Gain

Gear We Brought