Kingscote Walk-In Sites

Kingscote Access point in Algonquin Provincial Park offers walk-in campsites right at the access point. There are six in total. These are pretty basic sites that would work well as a late evening stopover before starting the next morning, or for a shoulder season trip where you don’t want to be on the water. Otherwise, I’d probably pick one of the paddle-in sites over any of these. That said, these sites exist, so let’s review them! (I’m combining them all into one page because, frankly, there isn’t enough of any of them to justify their own pages).

The six sites are organized on either side of a short walking trail that leads away from the Kingscote boat launch and runs parallel to the parking lot. Sites 1, 3 and 4 are all on the south side of that trail, sites 2, 5 & 6 are on the north side. What does this mean? It means that sites 1, 3, and 4 (from now on known as the Path Sites) don’t have water access. Sites 2, 5 and 6 (non known as the Water Sites) are in between them and Kingscote. So if you book a walk-in site, you’re not guaranteeing yourself any kind of view (apart from of the parking lot I guess).

The Path sites are all very basic. Each of them is basically a cleared out rectangle about 50 meters deep and 10 meters across with a fire grate in the middle. Site 1 does have its own personal parking spot carved out from the parking lot, which would come in handy I suppose if you really, really didn’t feel like carrying gear to your site. The Path Sites are all relatively flat, with room for two or more tents each.

The Lake Sites are more varied than the path sites. Each of them comes with a picnic bench, which the Path Sites are lacking. Site 2 is the closest to the boat launch. It’s a fairly enclosed spot, with a small window out to Kingscote from the site interior. There’s room for a couple of tents here as well, but it’s a smaller overall area than any of the Path Sites.

The same can be said for Sites 5 and 6. Neither of them are huge, but they don’t feel as enclosed as Site 2. Site 6 was my favourite of the bunch. It also, not at all coincidentally, has the best view. However. Site 6 also has the least favourable terrain. It’s built on a hill with two levelled out areas. One, down by the water, is where the fire grate is. The other, slightly higher up, is big enough for a couple of tents and the site’s picnic bench, if you don’t mind all those things being very close to each other. If site 5 had a better view of the water I’d probably pick it over Site 6 due to a slightly better fire pit and tent pad area, but like Site 2 the shoreline is fairly grown in.

All the sites are serviced by two outhouses. One of the outhouses is located in the parking lot, the other is above site 6 (which could be gross for anyone staying on site 6 later in the season). The boat launch is nearby, as is the parking lot. Other than that, there isn’t much more to know about these sites.