Stage 674’s another lumpy, bumpy helping of flatness. The profile may look tricky on paper but with less than two hundred feet of climbing and slightly less of descending, this west/east run along the northern shore of the St Joseph’s Channel is a powerfest. It starts off following the line of the Mississagi River then just before the river flows into the channel, hangs a left to start trundling along the coast beneath Lauzon Lake.
The rollout is downhill and curving right along the river for a mile before Highway 17 kicks uphill to Woman Island at two miles. Then it descends to the left hander just before three miles which marks the lowest elevation of the stage. There’s not much to report after than until five miles where the highway sweeps around the outside of a long bend that swings right then left over a mile and a half to Huron Pines Golf and Country Club at six miles. It’s there that the road turns left (east) while the river carries on south into St Joseph’s Channel.
At eight miles, the road arrives at the western end of the Blind River. It’s a strange scenario because the river flows down from the north to the town of the same name, but the passage through to the open channel is narrow, resulting in the main body of the river swinging right (west) past the town and on to Lake Huron that sits south of both the river and the road.
Highway 17 crosses the narrow river passage in Blind River (the town) at ten miles, before embarking on a more lumpy up and down route as the road heads slightly inland away from the coastline. The road arrives at more water, this time Lauzon Lake, at fourteen miles. The spread of the lake is vast, both north to south and east to west, but with finger like peninsulas and small islands dotted about all over the place, particularly in the east/west plane.
Halfway along the bottom of the lake lies the small community of Algoma Mills, and the coastal route through the town, which branches off Highway 17 at sixteen miles, rejoins the main highway three miles later. The finish of the stage is on a narrow strip of land between the south eastern tip of Lauzon Lake and the open water of St Joseph’s Channel: the final run in is lumpy uphill and heading east towards the junction with Pronto Road..
Distance: 21 miles / 34 kilometres
Ascent: 561 feet / 171 metres
RGT Magic Road: B43yhbVnlQSX
Max elevation: 665 ft
Min elevation: 567 ft
Total climbing: 560 ft
Total descent: -523 ft
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