O Cascades De Rawdon — Attraction in Rawdon

Camped here this weekend. Pros: Bathrooms are reasonably clean, there is water on-site. There is a fooseball table, pool table, and piano, low instance of mosquitos. Those are the only pros. Those are your two stars. Stuff you should be able to find downtown.

Cons:

• Other group had not vacated site upon arrival (their time ended hours before our group arrived) and awkwardly refused to leave and were not encouraged to leave by staff. We only had our camp site to ourselves by 7pm when it was ours since 12pm.

• Site was absolutely disgusting. Think of a gas station parking lot in the busiest part of town. Now add a tranquil river with beer cans floating by. We spent two hours picking up broken glass from our site before pitching our tents and scraping who knows what off the picnic table. When a service person did come to 'clean' something, they windexed one corner of the table and left. Bravo. Bring soap and a few rags.

No wood is included and the charge price for wood is insane, especially for kindling. If you really want to have your party camping, bring your wood and a hatchet because you get a tiny amount of wood for what they charge. Also be sure to bring all of your own alcohol because the on-site prices are insane (30$ for a 12 pack of short cans)

The camp does not enforce any types of laws or even its own rules. This is fun for people who like starting fistfights with each other and screaming until 6am, or shooting fireworks over your campsite. Which is fun the first time or so it happens but quickly loses its charm, even if you're drunk, stoned, and otherwise managing to enjoy yourself.

People you don't know will piss on your camp site, It's really a fratboy dump with trees around it. Guests here often have no regard for limits or boundaries, because the region has a 'party' reputation apparently it means it has a permit for people to be disgusting and steal your property. They come in big groups, get drunk, do drugs, and there is only one 'watchman' (who we NEVER saw) for the entire camp. This sounds like fun when it comes to your own group, but you're in the woods with people you don't know, in the dark, who come and grope your female friends. So if you wanted to drink and have a good time, watch out because it means you're going to be stalked by the obligatory creepy dude camps of late 30's dudes from the suburbs preying on girls. Either bring your biggest, sturdiest guy friends and don't wander off or don't go. This isn't really the fault of the camp, but it was easily the worst part about it and there is no guidelines.

There is no security or response to phone calls to the camp after their regular 'business hours', so if something is happening in the middle of the night you are screwed. This happened to us and a bunch of us were trapped in our tents while who knows who were threatening to kill each other.

This site's 'lots' are all packed together with no division, no privacy, no sense of camping intimacy. They're extremely close and tents from your lot will never be further than two meters from tents from someone else's, so prepare to hear their lackluster screwing. Even if you love getting drunk and listening to music when you camp, it's terrible. No swimming, the fishing is non-existant so there's no point to the shallow river.

edit: I am personally convinced that the bulk of the positive reviews glowing about the natural scenery are for the OTHER Rawdon campsite, which is actually very nice. (Parc Des Cascades and not this...

Actually - These pictures were taken 6 years ago. Dreaming of summer, I decided to look at some beach pictures today and found these.

The "Les Chutes" don't change, however, since these pictures were taken a lot of man made stuff around the "Les Cascades" has changed.

The side we were on that day is no longer in use - It looked to me last summer as if that side was still under construction and being updated and that quite possibly this summer it will also be opened.

In the meantime, we were directed to the other side now. It looked as if restaurants and other entertainment has been added. The decor makes you feel that you could be in Honolulu!! Haha!!

They also have stand up Bar-B-Q's every where you go so you can bring your own food and cook it there (I would recommend buying your own grill to use on their Bar-B-Q's though)!

The white water rapids (falls) marks the beginning of Lake Pontbriand which is at the very end of Rawdon right before Chertzey!

It runs from there all the way to Darwin Falls which is situated immediately before entering Rawdon.

At the bottom of the rapids begins the very calm and very safe Pontbriand Lake. It seems to be almost the same depth throughout this long lake - 5-1/2 feet deep or so. It is very clear and so pleasant to swim in. As it is a moving Lake, there is not much growth to slow your swimming down and even a city slicker used to swimming in cement pools will have a great time swimming in this lake (no gucky weeds, or slithering lily pads or ....)! Haha!

Also, you can launch a boat, kayak or canoe. There is sort of an island in the middle of this lake and if you wish some privacy, bring your water vehicle over to this island and...

The campground itself is really nice! Right next to the cascades, the water is clean, the toilets are clean, unfortunately no drinking water. There are signs saying that you have to wear a mask in the bathrooms and almost nobody were, it was very disrespectful.

The biggest problem with this place is that they cram as many people as they possibly can on each site, and they charge per head. This makes it very over priced for the space that you are allotted. I went with 8 people and they didn't allow us tho choose which site we wanted, we were only allowed one site. The site they gave us was big enough for 4 people. I was not happy about it, the guy that works there said that they normally fit 20 people on that tiny site.

Another example was the site next to us had a family reunion and they managed to squeeze in about 30-40 people on their site, which at a regular campground would fit around 10.

Some of the people who were camping there during my stay were blasting their music so loud that you couldn't even play your own music. I am all up for playing music loud and having a good time, and partying, making noise late, but if it is preventing others from doing so as well that is not right.

It is a shame that the owners choose to do this to such beautiful space and land. Unfortunately the pros of the great location doesn't make up for the cons of how this place is managed.

Overall pros: nice location fresh clean water allowed to be noisy

overall cons: very expensive way too packed not able to choose your own sites no drinking...