Montmorency Falls at Quebec

Montmorency falls is a water  fall 10 miles north from downtown Quebec city. It is well known for its height of 275 ft, which is about 100 ft taller than Niagara falls, but much narrower. The water fall is at the mouth of the river Montmorency where it merges with St Lawrence river. I went to Quebec for a technical conference last week and had the chance to visit this amazing water falls. My colleague and I were pretty lucky when we went there. It had been raining the previous days at Quebec and it turned from cloudy to sunny. 

We arrived at the Montmorency fall park ~ 8:30am and the park was essentially empty, few people there and we had the whole area for ourselves.

Mouth of Montmorency River and St. Lawrence River

There is a boarded trail along the slop of the gorge, surrounded by dense bushes and trees. The mouth of Montmorency river is beneath the trail where it pours into river St. Lawrence. We walked less than 100 yards on the board walk when it turned, and we heard the thunderous water falls, and saw ziplines hanging in front of it; but we did not get the chance to experience it since the zipline was closed. On the bright side, the clouds moved quickly out of the area. The sky was clear with few white clouds.

Vista and Zip line launching pad

Climbed the stairs to the top of the gorge and we the crossed the water falls via a suspension pedestrian bridge.  The water falls has two drops, it seems that the first drop was artificially modified - it looked that water flow passes a concrete "dam", before it falls off the cliff.

suspension bridge over Montmorency fall

The first drop of the water fall

When we walked down the boarded stairs on the other side of the gorge, the sun was behind us and mist was in the front,  perfect condition to see rainbows! In fact there were double rainbows, one was obvious, and the other was faintly colored.

Montmorency falls  with rainbows

We hiked all the way down to the base of the water fall on the other side of the gorge, and let the mists fly passing us, getting wet and enjoying the beautiful scenery  -  blue sky, white clouds, roaring water, rainbows, and green trees and the suspension bridge. The area is small, it is less than a mile from the hotel B & B Montmorency falls parking lot to the base of the fall on the other side of the gorge. So we climbed back up to the top of the water falls instead of taking the cable cart.  It was past 10am, and the area started to become crowded. We were on our way to our next destination - The Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.

Montmorency Falls is a must go when one visits Quebec.

our trails

panorama of Montmorency falls