McCrae Lake is a wonderful area that has easy access for canoers, kayakers and hikers to enjoy the beautiful, wild nature of the Canadian Shield and Georgian Bay. You may park your car at the parking area and enjoy excellent access to both the 5 Winds hiking trail and the McDonald Lake canoe launch point. Either way it'll be a great day.
Please NOTE... this is a very accessable area and it will be crowded in peak season, week ends and holidays. Always parctice CITO.
Parking Area: N44 55.325, W079 46.636
CANOE or HIKE?
We placed 3 caches in the area on April 26th, 2009. Of the three, one needs to be hiked to, one can be canoed or hiked to and one will likely need to be canoed to unless you feel comfortable wading a fast stream. If you wanted to try all three by hiking you would require a full day and should be prepared to cover more than 16K. I would reccommend an overnight stay. By canoe you can reach the furthest cache in about one hour and spend some time exploring the very interesting area for a while. There is a beautiful cliff top view of the bay and there is one shrine and a cliff side crucifix that must be a couple of Meters in size. Maybe you'd like to continue on to Georgain Bay? You can continue to follow the trail and explore more of the Georgian Bay coastline if you have managed to get over to the final cache. If you are canoeing, you can continue heading about NW between bone island and the mainlnd up to the mouth of the Musquash river to explore the old Muskoka Mills and a little further upstream you may want to have a look at the 3 Rock Chute on the Gibson. Lots to see and do here. Make it a day or make it a week.
"McCraezy Falls"
The second cache we placed while on our outing. This cache is near the portage from McDonald Lake into McRae Lake. We spent a 1/2 hour or so checking out the area and took many photos of the falls and rapids. You could pitch a tent in a couple of spots here if you were so inclined, we saw 2 tents and several other spots for them. The cache is a Medium Size Ammo can with lots of outdoor related swag hidden just far enough way from the trail to be somewhat private, but still, beware of muggles. There was an unactivated original COG Geocoin available in this cache to the F2F person.
