New Brunswick’s Best Backcountry Trip – Mount Carleton

If you’re looking for a one night backcountry trip in one of New Brunswicks best parks, Mount Carleton is severely underrated and should be on your list! We weren’t sure what we were expecting, but this quick overnight trip to Mount Carleton exceeded our expectations (and it’s even dog-friendly!). Located in the upper part of New Brunswick, Canada, is Mount Carleton Provincial Park, where the highest peak in the Maritimes can be found. Keep reading for more details on the hike, what you can expect, and our experience.

About Mount Carleton

Mount Carleton is a quiet park located in the upper park of New Brunswick about 3.5 hours north from Fredricton, New Brunswick. It is home to many hikes, summits, and lakes making it extremely nice to visit and stay. They also offer all types of camping experiences – from backcountry, to lakeside, to drive-in, and even cabins. Mount Carleton Provincial Park is a part of the Appalachian Mountains, which is where the epic scenery and great hikes come in to play. The mountain itself is the highest peak in the Maritimes, making it a stunning look-out spot (and even includes a fire-lookout, unfortunately you can’t camp in there but you can get inside!).

Hike Stats & Camping Information

• Type of Hike: Loop
• Total Hike Distance: 9.6 km
• Total Elevation: 420m
• Difficulty: Medium – more challenging near the top (quite a bit of rocks to climb on)
• Time: 3-5 hours (if doing the entire loop and not staying overnight).
• Campsite Location: Backwater campsite. It is located slightly off the trailhead and well marked. It is located 4 km up the left side of the loop, with 1.2 km left to get to the summit.
• Campsite Information: There is a food cache for storage and a washroom at the campsites. They are relatively spread out (but we were alone on our night so didn’t hear anyone anyways). There was no water in the vicinity of the campsite during our stay.
• Dog Friendly: Yes – on leash.
• Washrooms: At the bottom of the trail and at the campsite location.
• Parking: There is a large parking lot where you can park overnight found at the bottom of the trail head.
• Payment: You do need to pay for the campsite (which you can do below online) – this cost us 30$ in 2025. The rates for the park can be found here.
• All Trails link
• For more trail information / directions, check out this website.

How To Book Mount Carleton

You can reserve your camping spot for this campsite (or any campsite in Mount Carleton Provincial Park) at this link. For the Mount Carleton Backcountry Campsite we stayed at, you’ll want to select Mount Carleton as your park, then book the Headwaters campsites (BC1-4). There are four campsites total, all relatively similar. We stayed at campsite #1 and enjoyed it. Note that during the summer months, the creek is dried up.

Our Experience At Mount Carleton

We pulled up to Mount Carleton Provincial Park on the evening of 30 June – the evening of Canada Day and it was SO quiet. We did arrive later in the day, but were greeted by the park ranger who gave us all the information for our hike and let us on our way. Driving by stunning lake-side campsites, beautiful scenery, and quiet roads, we arrived at the Mount Carleton parking lot and geared up for our overnight trip. Because we arrived late and didn’t leave the parking lot until 1930, our goal was just to get to the campsite and set up before dark – leaving the summit and remainder of the loop for the next morning. This meant we were taking the clockwise route (starting going UP the left side, and back down the right the next day).

Four kilometres and some elevation change later, we had walked through lots of greenery and followed a creek for a large part of the hike which made for some stunning scenery. The parking lot was completely empty and we didn’t run into anybody on the trail head meaning we had the whole hike to ourselves! We arrived at our campsite which followed a small trail off to the side and found no-one else at any of the other campsites for the evening. I believe it was about 1-1.5 hours of hiking to reach the campsite from the parking lot. After some food and setting up for the night, getting comfortable, and getting our pup Pringle settled in (his FIRST camping trip!), we headed to bed excited to get up for the summit the next morning.

We had a slow morning of coffee and breakfast before packing it in and heading up the trail to the summit. After a bit of hiking, the trail slowly turned into climbing some small to medium sized rocks (Pringle needed to be lifted up some of the rocks!) and there was a fork in the trail – either take the covered main trail or go up to the ridge. The ridge is ALWAYS our answer, so we headed that way and helped Pringle climb some more rocks until we reached the first viewpoint with the summit in close reach. The morning light and having the entire summit / ridge to ourselves was such a treat – the views overlooking New Brunswick were something else! In the distances you can see the fire lookout, and we slowly made our way over there enjoying the ridge views which were 360 degrees! It took us about 30 minutes from the campsite to the first ridge, and then an additional 30-45 minutes to the fire lookout.

After taking a break at the fire lookout and snapping some pictures / taking in the scenery, we decided to do the loop route and continue onwards past the fire lookout to loop back down. We were really glad we did it this way as it was much easier going down. It was also quite a boring route, but after the summit we don’t mind a nice easy stroll to get back to car. I believe this took us approximately 1.5 hrs from the summit back to the car.

We lucked out with great river and views all to ourselves this day. When we arrived back at the parking lot, the parking lot had a few more cars in it with people heading out for their morning hike. We drove back out of the park with a tired pup in the backseat and admired the lake-side views along the ride out and onto our next adventure.

Things To Note

• There’s no cell reception
• Recommend doing the trail CLOCKWISE and taking the ridge route once you get closer to the top (instead of following the main trail – there will be signs)
• Bring water / snacks
• Wear good hiking shoes – it is a bit of a scramble near the top
• The park is closed during certain periods of the year (usually winter / spring months) – check the provincial park page before booking!

Mount Carleton was the start of a week long road trip for us and it was such a pleasant surprise with unreal views – we hope you enjoy it just as much!