You’ll recall that at the end of stage 696, the route took a right turn which effectively stalled progress towards Montreal. Stage 697 sorts that out and puts down a marker that the route is going to follow the west bank of the St Lawrence River. It’s a flat stage that doesn’t look it when you study the elevation profile: there are jaggy little climbs aplenty in the first eight miles and you could be forgiven for thinking that they are going to present a problem. They won’t: neither the total ascent nor the total descent comes to a hundred feet end to end on the stage. The first half is gently downhill but jaggy while the second half is gently uphill but less jaggy.
The rollout on County Road 34 is south east and straight. It passes through Green Valley after a half a mile then crosses the Beaudette River half a mile after that. Then the jaggy stuff starts. They come about courtesy of an array of streams that criss-cross the road between miles one and eight. The largest of them, indeed the only one that’s named, is Finney Creek, which crosses under the road a couple of times either side of seven miles.
The descent finishes at Lancaster at ten miles where the route turns left onto Old Highway 2. Lancaster and its partner South Lancaster sit on the St Lawrence River looking across to Quebec, and beyond that to the right, the state of Vermont in the United States.
Having made the turn, the rest of the stage heads north east up the western (Ontario) side of the river. Lancaster Park Outdoor Resort is at eleven miles followed by Bainsville at fifteen miles and the crossings of Sutherland Creek at sixteen miles followed by Wood Creek a mile later.
As the road climbs gently, it arrives at the border between Ontario and Quebec at eighteen miles just after passing 5th Line Road on the left. At twenty miles, the route re-engages the Beaudette River where it flows into the St Lawrence River, then just over a mile after that, the stage ends at the Notre Dame Des Rivieres Marina.
Distance: 22 miles / 35 kilometres
Ascent: 299 feet / 91 metres
RGT Magic Road: PkwAgUlcybKp
Max elevation: 286 ft
Min elevation: 183 ft
Total climbing: 300 ft
Total descent: -367 ft
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