The day before the Sun Nov 1 hike the weather forecast for Mont St-Hilaire was for rain and wind. Like many of you, I reflexively thought, “We can’t possibly hike in the rain!” But then I thought, well, why not?! It’s not like I don’t have all the weather-resistant gear and clothing I would need!
Normally, we likely would have cancelled. And if there was going to be any heavy rain, we surely would have done so. But the forecast was just intermittent light rain, and after having to miss the previous two Sun hikes, personally I was keen to get out in the woods and I thought maybe some others might be also. So I figured, let’s give it a try
My call for hikers was answered by six people. In the end, three had to opt out for various reasons, and so there were four of us who met up at Mont St Hilaire at 10 am. It was indeed raining lightly as we gathered in the centre d’accueil. We were a determined bunch, especially two of the group who had unexpectedly stayed out partying the night before until 3 am! A lucky thing the clocks changed overnight and they had an extra hour to recuperate.
After congratulating ourselves for having made it this far (i.e, driving through the rain to the park!), we set out on the trails. It was 7 C and still raining lightly, but the Weather Network and the radar map predicted it would end in about 30 minutes. Sure enough, the rain did stop and it did not rain again for the rest of 
our hike. The wide, well-maintained trails of the nature center were wet but not muddy.
We took our usual clockwise route. We first climbed to the Burned Hill view point, where there was only a partial view due to low cloud cover. We then continued on to the more prominent Pain de Sucre look out. By the time we arrived there, the rain had stopped and the visibility of the surrounding areas was surprisingly good. Pain de Sucre is a popular stopping point for park visitors and there are usually many people 
crowded onto the big rock. But on this day we were the only ones there. This exposed view point was one of the only spots where we felt the strong winds.
Indeed, we had to take care not to get blown off the rock! But everywhere else on the hike, we were completely sheltered from the winds — it was downright tranquil.
After descending from Pain de Sucre, we decided to forgo the usual trek north to the Dieppe and Rocky view points. Instead we cut across the center of the park from west to east on the purple trail (sentier mauve). We then walked south on the trail that skirts the edge of Lac Hertel. We paused at the small wooden lookout deck to admire a large group of ducks on the lake.
We then continued south back to the centre d’accueil.
Hike stats: 8.5 km, 2 hr 26 min and 4 happy hikers. Not bad for a day that
originally looked like it would be a washout!