"Views from the Belvedere on Mont Saint-Alban" Top 5 Page for this destination Gaspé Things to Do Tip by Bwana_Brown

About 2 hours after we had started out, we finally reached the wooden ‘belvedere’ atop Mont Saint-Alban, and what a view it provided! The first two photos show the actual tip of the peninsula with the vertical 700-ft cliffs of Cap Gaspé on its northern side facing us. Several minutes after we arrived at the belvedere, another couple turned up (the first other hikers we had seen) and they returned our favour by taking a shot of the two of us on the belvedere (3rd photo).

Swinging our view around more to the right (west), we could see past the dark point of land on the other side of Gaspé Bay (in which the sheltered WWII naval base was built) to the even more distant features of Percé. The long and low island to the left is Isle Bonaventure bird sanctuary, the smaller island to its right is the world-famous Percé Rock and the mountains to the right include the Mont Ste.-Anne lookout as it slopes down to the town of Percé.

Looking straight down the mountainside, we could see the green grass and parking area (including our car) of Cap Bon-Ami from where we had set out, as well as the rocky ‘wart’ of Le Quai Roch to its right.

Following our rest in the refreshing breezes atop Mont Saint-Alban, we made the easy descent to where the trail forked. We decided to continue onward to the southern coast and went for about a mile before we checked our map more closely and realized that it would only bring us to the paved road along the southern side of Forillon NP. Realizing it would mean too much extra hiking after the hard mountain slog, we back-tracked to our car (and coming back down that loose rock slope was tougher than going up!) and decided to make the short drive back around to the southern park entrance! Altogether the hike had taken us about 4-hours.

Directions: On top of Mont Saint-Alban in Forillon National Park