Earl Rowe Provincial Park — Attraction in Adjala–Tosorontio

Earl Rowe Campground is a very clean, well spaced out campground. Our site was far enough away from the neighbouring sites that we were not bothered by others. We couldn't even see them through the foliage. Campsites range in sizes, from a single, small tent size, to a large, RV size. We fit a picnic table, a full length, foldable plastic table, the truck, a nine person mansion of a tent and a six person, fair sized tent. There was still a fair bit of room, too.

The bathroom was fairly close, generally clean, the toilets and sinks were clean, the floor was a bit muddy for most of the weekend.

Firepit had a relatively low grate for grilling food on. That was nice to have. Great for tin foil packages of food. Firepit was also located off to the side of the site, so it wasn't smack dab in the middle of the site, that was also very nice.

Staff was knowledgeable and friendly. Park wardens kept the noise to a minumum, we had some unruly neighbours that caused a bit of a ruckus, (just really loud when talking, probably ten or so college boys) but the wardens came and quieted them down.

Gorgeous lookout trail right down the way from our site. The lookout was absolutely phenomenal. You could see out for a very long time, above the campground, about 180° view. Perfect for star gazing and sunsets. Hike up was pretty steep on one side, not so bad on the other side. However, the less steep side of the trail was not very clearly marked where to go, both to continue on the trail, or to get back to the campground. Definitely bring your map, one of the trails is like, 11km long. Beautiful trails, though. Definitely worth hiking them.

Main downside was having to buy the wood there. Which would have been fine, however, the wood they were selling was very wet on the inside and would not burn for us. We struggled to light a fire and go keep it going, the entire weekend, that put a damper on things. Seemed like the wood had not been dried long enough before being sold. They did have bags of kindling, which saved us, we also brought a hatchet/small axe to cut the bigger pieces down to kindling size, those burnt okay.

There are canoe rentals, which was part of our plan but never ended up doing it, so I can't comment on them. There is a park store with everything you may have forgotten, along with wood and ice. There are places for fishing, but you cannot fish just anywhere. Unfortunately, the water was not safe enough, at the time, for us to swim in.

Scout out the sites first, though. Ours had equal parts shade and sun, which was very nice. We were able to charge our solar powered items. Electricity available and radio free sections available, as well.

They had a bunch of free courses and things, too. One for bird watching, one for learning how to fish and one for star gazing. They give you a small, free package for each one. Binoculars and such for bird watching, fishing related items for the learning to fish course and a few things for the stargazing, including a constellation map. I can't quite remember what all of the items were but they were a great value for a free course/supplies.

Anything you might need from a store is very close, just a quick jaunt out to the road you came in on, one turn and you're basically in town. We hit up Canadian Tire, Fresh Co., Dollarama and Giant Tiger. Just to name a few stores. They had everything that we needed. We had to replace a tent and an air mattress pump and were able to do both.

Overall, had a wonderful weekend, it's a beautiful park. Would definitely recommend if you like privacy....

Overall, I had a decent experience at Earl Rowe over the Civic long weekend. I stayed at the Riverside Campground - Salmon Run. Here are some more detailed points of the different aspects/areas of the park and surrounding areas:

Park - Very nice! Enjoyable to walk, hike and generally explore. Clean and well-kept. The place is deceptively huge and makes adventuring feel just that more fun. You scan yourself in with a barcode printed on a piece of paper that the front office gives you. We watched multiple people attempt to enter that seemingly hadn't been to the office first, which was some painful second-hand embarrassment.

Water/fishing/boating - The main lake water is absolutely disgusting. Do not swim in it. It's a still body of water full of goose poop...to the brim. Get a canoe if you want to touch the water at all. I'd highly recommend skipping fishing on the main lake and going to the riverside, unless you want a poop covered fishing line, bobber, etc. I saw a couple floating down on lilo's through the goose poop....VILE. V I L E. Seriously, so so disgusting. Why would you do that to yourself??? Anyway, We had a lot more success at riverside as well and caught some mid-sized fish, but other times of the year you'll see salmon and other larger fish. Canadian Tire and some of the surrounding gas stations sell worms and salmon eggs as bait.

Sites - The sites at Riverside are a good size, and most have access to the river, which is awesome. I loved listening to the river flowing at night. They feel private thanks to the tree and bush coverage, but, we found lots of garbage scattered around...including glass.

Facilities - There's only two or three comfort stations in the whole place, and each only has four or five showers, which just isn't enough. Showers are hit or miss in terms of water pressure, some much lesser than others. Toilets, particularly the ones at Riverside (which are vault toilets) were fine for the most part, but found the seat covered in pee every single time I went in. How hard is it to raise it? Maintenance of facilities is consistent, which was good to see. The open-top garbage cans outside the vault toilets are SO dumb and were always surrounded by garbage from those seemingly "missing" putting their garbage in and / or from animals pulling it out.

Neighbors - Including seeing as this is a big factor for some. Most sites around us were occupied, but thankfully everyone remained quiet later in the day and throughout the night. There were some people playing country music late-afternoon, but it wasn't anything complaint worthy. Neighbors could be better at putting their garbage in the cans and not leaving garbage bags on their sites, oh, as well as leaving full open food containers at their sites during the day to attract animals, but I won't judge anyone's camping experience levels too much...

Other notes - There is a train nearby and you will hear it, a lot, even during the night. Some are significantly louder than others, but that's a forewarning for anyone sensitive to those kinds of noises. Riverside campground is also near the group camping, which was also somewhat noisy in the mornings and afternoon.

Alliston - The town is great and filled with shops and eateries right outside the park gates. I did get a sense of underlying bitterness from some locals towards those visiting...which is...

I did not enjoy my experience at all during the time I was at Earl Rowe. I don't even know where to start. We go to checkin and we are told we need to go to the other side of the street because we are in Riverside. This is absolutely preposterous - couldn't they have fixed their internal bridge to prevent having to have a seperate gate entrance? They are cheap! Our site, #71, had litter on the site and rangers didn't think to clean up the cardboard and kindling left behind by the previous visitors. The campsites were all very small which is a huge letdown. Went to the comfort stations once to check it out, and boy was that a mistake! They were very dark (lights only on the one wall and not on the ceiling), and it kinda smelled - they really should put air fresheners in there. I wanted to take a shower after setting up but they had huge lineups because I walked around briefly and couldn't see another comfort station. When I got in, it was filthy - seriously, are they ever cleaned? Making it worse, none of the showers had very good water pressure and there was no way to change the temperature. Some of my family members went for the 2hr hike and complained there were no benches to rest on. How on earth do they expect us to walk 2+hrs without a rest? INSTALL BENCHES ON YOUR TRAILS. I could hear dogs barking all week and the rangers were never around - talk about horrid concern for visitor safety. Don't even get me started on the beach - put some chemicals in the manmade river and clean it up. It's not natural river so just fix it up and let us swim. It's a cash grab forcing us to use your pool and paying $6.00 a person for somehing that we should be doing for FREE. The lifeguards were rude and told us to get out because they heard thunder when I never heard anything - just plain laziness if you ask me. Why allow us to enter if you think you are going to hear thunder? Plus, the pool staff want you to shower but they don't enforce it so the shower facilities are pointless. Alliston is a tiny town with almost nothing to offer - only like 1 or 2 grocery stores (no walmart or macdonalds anywhere which is a huge letdown). I drove all over and could only spot one restaurant so I guess that means people there only eat at East Side Marios - yuck. 100% DO...