It was a splendid day for hiking at Prevost — sunny and 5 C. After a delay due to the late arrival of our hike leader (me!), 12 of us finally set out at 10:20 am.
It’s sometimes difficult to get other members to lead a hike if I’m not there. I tell people, it’s not a big deal, just get the trail map and use it in conjunction with the trail markers. But there are a couple of places we go to that are exceptions. Rigaud, when we start from the Sanctuary, is one of them. We usually have to get our local expert Christine B-M to guide us. The other exception is Prevost. I have done this hike over a dozen times, but even with a clear map of the 
desired route, I sometimes struggle to keep us on track. There are trail markers here and there, but there are many poorly marked turns that are tough to find even when I know they are coming up and I’m looking for them!
The first challenge is finding the correct path up to the summit of Mount Shaw. As usual, we briefly took some wrong turns and did a bit of back tracking before we found our way up to the summit with its big boulder. Now, to call this lookout “Mount” Shaw is a being generous, even by Laurentian mountain standards. But there is a nice view, so I guess that’s what counts.
As we made our way down to Lac du Paradis, we were joined by a late-arriving Kelly and her handsome pooches, Thor and Loki. So now we were 13 plus two dogs. We paused to admire the lake and watch the dogs frolic in the water. 
Then it was up to the power lines and the steep path parallel to them. We then went along the upper ridge and emerged at the first of the two main lookouts. We continued along the edge of the ridge to the second lookout, where we took a lunch break.
I then tried to follow the MOC trail further north, but I could not find the turnoff and wound up on the roughly-parallel WZ trail. So a bit longer than planned, but it was a nice way down also. We went back the usual way — west on the WN trail, then south on the JE trail before joining the dirt road (closed to traffic) and finally the P’tit Train du Nord.
It was another classic day of hiking at Prevost. Stats: 9.0 km, 3 hr 10 min, 13 very happy hikers (plus the two dogs). For five people, it was there first time at Prevost, and they especially enjoyed discovering these great trails not so far from the city!